Tiniest Fluffiest Eternal Dragon!
by Zombie Cat Scientist
Summary: A person reborn as the weakest possible thing you could be born as, a puppy, son of Shu and minion of Emperor Pilaf, takes the opportunity to wish for a better form instead of women's underwear. They become an itty bitty dragon! (Not perfectly canon, just to warn you.)
1. Chapter 1 Becoming A Dragon

**Tiniest Fluffiest Eternal Dragon**

**summary: **A person reborn as the weakest possible thing you could be born as, a puppy, son of Shu and minion of Emperor Pilaf, takes the opportunity to wish for a better form instead of, say, women's underwear. They become an itty bitty dragon!

Written in first person POV, which I guess technically makes it a SI-OC?

Cover pic not by me.

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I had been born as freakin' puppy.

_A PUPPY._

Into, it seemed, the Dragon Ball Z universe, where people blew up entire planets. Could you literately choose anything more pathetic to stand up against such threats? I was so, so screwed. I may not have watched many episodes of the series, but I'd seen enough to know pretty much anyone who wasn't a Saiyan was basically cannon-fodder.

"Now, pay attention. I must teach you the techniques of a Ninja if you are to be a good minion to Emperor Pilaf!" my father's dopey dog face beamed down at my tiny puppy body. "This technique is called Image Training. You picture your opponent in your head, and fight against them mentally. It works even better if you set up a psychic connection with them, as you can then both mentally fight together in real time with the other's real strategies and techniques instead of your memory of them. Try thinking of me!"

I nodded and pretended to concentrate on fighting an imaginary version of Shu the ninja dog-man, but really I was far more distracted with plans for the future.

To make matters worse, I'm the child of this idiot who thinks working for Pilaf is a great idea! But this could actually turn out to be a good opportunity for me. Sure, his training techniques aren't going to get me above a power level of 20, but, he does have a connection to someone who actually manages to collect the dragon balls. If I could interrupt and make a better wish, especially for that stupid wasted one for women's underwear, I could change things for the better and maybe not get myself horribly killed. For that interruption, this ninja training might actually be useful, even if the concept of a ninja puppy is rather laughable...

I hesitated, though. What would be the best wish? A good one would obviously be to turn a bunch of people into saiyans - the power creep, if I remembered correctly, had gotten ridiculous and the humans just couldn't keep up. If there had been, say, 10 super saiyans instead of just 2 or 4? The enemies in the series would have been seriously smushed into paste before the battle even started. But did I want to be a saiyan myself? Not particularly. I didn't like being a weak if adorable puppy, but turning into a low class saiyan just to play pincushion and second fiddle to people far more interested in fighting and training than I was didn't sound much more appealing. Was there a better possible wish I could make? There were limits to how much one could wish for, so simply wishing for power or immortality might not be a great idea - if the dragon couldn't kill someone above Kami's power level, they probably couldn't grant you the power to do so either.

Probably the most frustrating thing was how the wishes kept threatening to be used by villains, if one could somehow wish that wishes be only used for good...

Wait, that's it!

With a mischievous grin, I finally decided on the perfect wish for me.

Only to get bonked on the head with a newspaper, my dog-father barking "Mushu! Pay more attention! I can tell you aren't concentrating hard enough on pretending to gnaw your enemies into bones!"

I groaned and rubbed my fuzzy head. "Shu, what kind of father tells their kid to play pretend fighting and calls it training?"

My ninja dog-father growled, "This IS training, pup! You didn't pay attention. Focus your energies! Make a double of your opponent in them, and have your energies duke it out inside of you!"

Well, put it that way and it sounded far less stupid, like a technique that actually did something. And I'd need enough energy to speed my way into the opportunity coming ahead. "Alright." I tried, and actually, the technique wasn't half bad. I kept it up for the next several days and noted some definite improvements, more in speed than power as that was what I focused on most, but I think my power level may have increased a bit too. Not that such would be hard, for all I knew I had started out with a power level of 1 or something equally terrible. It certainly couldn't be higher than Shu's own 20 or so. From what I hazily remembered of power levels I very much doubted either of us were even half-way to 100 power points.

I guessed maybe Shu wasn't a complete idiot, for all he worked for Pilaf, but unfortunately, he was certainly weak and this universe was not forgiving of that unless you were a Bulma-level genius.

Pilaf, by complete coincidence, happened to walk up to Shu and randomly electrocute him. Torture was the primary way he 'rewarded' subordinates for poor execution of their duties, and one of the primary reasons I thought Shu was an idiot for having any loyalty to him. "Shu! Stop messing around with your puppy! You have work to do, the idiot monkey child has almost completely collected all the dragon balls! Now all we have to do is steal the 6 and combine it with our 1 ball, and we'll have access to our dream to make ME Emperor of the Earth!"

_Your dream, you mean_. I flattened my ears in disdain. Shu noticed my disrespectful look and cuffed me again, though he never hit me very hard. Like a true ninja in training, I weighed the gains of dodging against the possible upsides to not, and decided to take the blow. It would make them all underestimate me. I forced a tail wag when Pilaf looked in my direction, and said, "I'll come too! I think someone should steal their dragon radar, so they can't come after us as easily. After that, I think a great victory like this demands a great feast, don't you think?"

"Hm," the little blue midget seemed to mull it over. "What you say does have merit. At the very least, you can prove your worth by stealing that radar! _Then_ we'll see about maybe having a great feast in my honor!"

Too easy, the egotistical little pipsqueak walked right into it. At said feast, I could simply drug them into a stupor and then make a wish uninterrupted. Although to be honest, who would ever suspect a mere puppy of deviousness? Dogs were supposed to be famously loyal. Maybe that even was why Shu, who was clearly a little bit smarter and more competent than Pilaf, still worked for him. My extremely hazy memories of a previous life hadn't completely over-written this genetic tendency in myself either: I just felt loyal to Shu rather than Pilaf. Shu might be an idiot dog-man, but I didn't want to see him dead from the numerous threats that would come to the planet in the future. He'd raised me mostly with care, after all, and always made sure if we were going hungry that I got fed before himself. I didn't know what happened to my mother, but I assume she was a dog-person as well and simply had better sense than to follow Pilaf around as master.

"S-sir!" Mai, Pilaf's other main minion and usually much more serious than Shu, called out with a very worried expression. "They're headed right here to the castle! With all 6 of the other dragon balls!" They were bringing all of them with them right to the castle? _Were they stupid?_ No, no, don't answer that... this could seriously ruin all my plans.

"WHAT? Quick, Shu, my man, get in the Pilaf Machine!" A mechanical monstrosity that was matched mainly by Pilaf's ego, it was thus named after Pilaf himself. "Mushu, go hide in the shadows and strike when you get the opportunity! Don't bother with the radar, if they're already here and know where we are! Just get me those dragon balls when they enter the castle!"

"Yes sir," I growled, which came out more like a little squeak, which made Shu look at me and laugh at how adorable I was. Shut up. _I am a mighty warrior of fluff._

_"Son,_" Shu came over and whispered. "I don't want you to get hurt, so don't jump in if you feel you can't handle it, okay?"

"...thanks, pops." I meant it.

I scurried up a pillar and hid, waiting, trying to plot up a new plan now that my old one had been so thoroughly vanished down the toilet. It didn't take long for Goku to burst in and to get wailed on by the Pilaf Machine. An idea came to me when during the mayhem, Shu retrieved just _five _of the dragon balls from Goku's friends. I crouched down and tried to sneak close so I could pickpocket Goku.

"We missed one and that stinky kid just won't go down! Time to gas them!"

Ah, bugger. And I had been so close too! I covered my face with a cloth ninja mask and raced for an exit. I made it, but couldn't help but inhale some and felt incredibly woozy. Shu approached Goku with the Pilaf Machine while the gas was still too thick for myself to do the same. My luck really wasn't good today, was it?

Or was it? I was still awake, and there was one ball that no one was paying much attention to at the moment. Goku it seemed was already recovering from the gas (just how ridiculous was that kid's stamina?) and Pilaf was already ordering all the balls to be gathered for his wish, so there was little time to lose. I raced in, pocketed it just swiftly enough to turn around as Shu and the others came in to put on my best innocent puppy face (and let's face it, anyone could look really innocent as a puppy) and exclaimed "It's gone! They must have had someone sneak in and steal it, while the main force played distraction for us!" That is what I would have done if I was with them, frankly. But maybe that was too honorable for them. Goku certainly didn't seem the type to agree to such a plan.

"WHAT?" Pilaf exclaimed.

"But I thought I'd counted all of their friends?" Mai mused, far closer to figuring out the truth than I liked.

"Master Roshi wasn't among them, and he's a wily old man, some say even a master of disguise. He could have done it," I bluffed. "You should head to his house right away. But maybe don't take all the balls with you, since you don't want him to make a wish, do you? Do what I suggested, take the radar and hide the other balls somewhere safe in the castle. Or let me choose a good hiding spot for them, I'm really good at hiding."

"Say, that's not a bad plan, puppy. Maybe there'll be a promotion for you when I'm Emperor of the Earth!" Pilaf puffed out. "But don't go getting a big head!"

Mai was still frowning. "Sir, I'm not really sure..."

"Quiet, Mai! I decided on a plan and that's final! Mai, you'll steal the radar, Shu, you'll pilot the Pilaf Machine to Master Roshi's house! And Mushu, you'll hide the other dragon balls!"

I flashed a toothy grin, which in dog-speak wasn't quite as charming as in human body language, and saluted.

_Perfect._

I just hoped my scheming paid off and my efforts didn't backfire in my face. As I gathered the remaining balls, they very nearly did as a blue cat's face appeared in front of me. Crap! I thought they'd all be distracted fighting Mai! Some of them must have split up to look for the balls on the threat of losing their dragon ball scanner, which was smarter than I was expecting from them.

"Who are you?" the cat, my natural enemy, meowed, and I had to resist the urge to eat it. "Why isn't Pilaf with these balls? Why is he tryin' to steal our scanner?"

"He thinks one still remains at Master Roshi's house because he actually lost his and the thief headed that way," I opted for the partial truth. "You better go warn the others before his house gets blown up! And before you ask why I'm helping you cat, I don't actually want Pilaf to become Emperor, just between you and me!"

The cat eyed me suspiciously, and clearly didn't quite buy it. "Thanks, but if that's the case, then why are you taking these dragon balls, dog?"

"...because otherwise they'll still be in Pilaf's hands, and he still needs just that one ball before he becomes Emperor? Now go! Stop him!" I made a shooing motion. Damn cats. Never do what you want them to. That might be my new prejudices as a dog talking though.

"If you really mean to do good, you should give them to me!" the cat puffed out with self importance, like all cats do.

"Like I would trust a cat!" I barked, which made her fur go on end. "Go, you're running out of time!" Annoyed and regretting that she was making me do this, I sent a wave of energy out of the palm of my paw, which while pretty pathetic compared to anything Goku could do was still enough to frighten a weak feline. The cat hissed and spluttered before running away.

"I won't forget this!" she exclaimed. "Yamcha! Yamcha!" she meowed. I didn't wait around and immediately went out a window.

Sparing just a quick glance to make sure I was really alone, I immediately laid out the dragon balls and chanted, "Oh dragon Shenron! I summon thee, please grant my wish!"

The skies darkened and crackled with electricity, and gray storm clouds gathered, the shadow of a massive serpentine form among them. A great green scaly maw with red eyes descended, and great golden claws nearly touched the earth, hovering before me. "Who summons me, the Great Eternal Dragon? Make your wish known!"

"I, Mushu, wish for-"

"-the ultimate pair-!" No, that stupid pig! When did he get here?

"form of a dragon!" I interrupted his interruption. Both parties seemed pretty startled at my wish, clearly not what anyone was expecting. "I want to be a dragon, like you, except I want to be able to choose who I grant wishes to!"

"...I am not sure if I can grant this wish," Shenron admitted, and my heart and tail sank. Admittedly, I hadn't been sure if he could either, but I had thought it was at least worth a try. I had always wanted to fly through the sky, you see.

"You're not wishing to be emperor of the world?" A pig - I think he was called Oolong - asked, and I turned my head to figure out where he had come form. Ah, another window. The cat must have located him and told him. And now the others were coming out too, although frankly they probably didn't need to be told to come, as it was kind of hard to miss a gigantic dragon in the sky.

"Heck no," I scoffed. "There's already a dog king and my understanding is his job is mostly paperwork and greeting dignitaries, it sounds dull. I'd much rather soar through the sky and grant wishes and, I dunno, bask in the sun all day. Plus dragons are just plain awesome." Forgive me if, as a puppy, I was basically a child at heart despite the seriousness of my desire to make the future slightly better. It also probably didn't hurt to flatter dear Shenron here, who did look rather pleased at the compliment. He probably didn't get those too often if the dragon balls were normally only used every 100 years and generally just by someone looking to become king or get rich.

"Hey!" Goku exclaimed as he arrived. "You tricked everyone! That's not very nice."

"Damage control time, what did he wish for and why is the dragon still here?" Bulma asked sensibly as she came with Goku, and I noted she still had her radar. So they had beaten up poor Mai then. They would have all headed here then in any case.

"I had a good wish. Do you really think Pilaf is going to be the most powerful opponent you'll ever face, or his wish the worst that anyone will ever attempt on the dragon balls? Frankly it probably wouldn't make a huge difference to the world if he came to be in charge, as he's too incompetent and lazy to spend much time hands on running it, so it would mostly involve people calling him a title. Compared to some of the things people could wish for, that's small fry." I shook my head and resisted the urge to wag my tail at angry voices and yip for forgiveness. "You all think too small. Unfortunately, it seems my wish might be too much to grant."

"Oh?" said Bulma, insulted. Fortunately, she made the perfect case in point.

"I know you wanted to wish for the perfect boyfriend," I said flatly, although my attempts at seriousness were somewhat ruined by my adorable puppy features. I looked at Oolong. "And I can guess from your mangled wish that you were going to wish for a perfect pair of socks or underwear?"

"Really Oolong? Underwear?" Bulma whirled on him. Oolong gulped.

"Hey, it can be really hard to find the perfect, silky soft pair you know! How is that any stupider than asking for a boyfriend?"

"**Enough**!" interrupted Shenron, thunder crashing at his words, and everyone fell silent. "I have no desire to float here forever. Though some wish granters are malicious and grant the letter of the wish, I am not one of them. I will tell you the details of your wish and consequences to the best of my ability, and ask if you still desire this. My power is not unlimited, and it is tied to the being known as Kami, and the dragon balls. It is the requirement that the balls be collected that is the main difficulty in your wish, for otherwise, should you wish it, I could transfer my powers to you and you could take my place as eternal dragon. But that would not satisfy your desire that you 'be able to grant wishes to whoever you so choose'. To do so, the dragon balls would have to be absorbed into your body. This would have the consequence of turning you to stone like them after their use for one year. It would also mean you would have less protection from the build up of negative energies that counterpart the positive from selfless wishes. It is safest to use the dragon balls only about once in a hundred years, to allow the negative energies to fully dissipate. Otherwise, you risk turning into a shadow dragon until the negative energies have spent themselves. It is likely that you could die if Kami dies, as well, but you would be otherwise immortal, which can be very long and dull. Is all of this acceptable to you?"

"Does that mean that if I granted selfish wishes on occasion, this would balance out and I could grant wishes more often safely?" Everyone else except Shenron paled at this suggestion, but that just made it more clear to me that I was the only one who could possibly do this. They were too noble to play neutral, even if it meant everyone better off in the long run. "Also, what happens if I get into combat, say to defend myself?"

"Yes to the first, and to the second, it would weaken your power for granting your next wish until you rested your energies back to full strength."

"Could I grow in strength, though, from training? Or am I too tied to this 'Kami'?"

"I suppose it is faintly possible that you could grow more powerful. It would have a side effect of strengthening him." So I could make Piccolo stronger, but at the cost of possibly delaying the time between wishes. Neat, I guess. Only useful in times of peace though. "I would teach you basic techniques known to dragons, as you would not be a very good wish granter if you did not know how to access your power. Then, and this is the final consequence, I would die."

"Die?!" the others behind me exclaimed. I didn't hide my own dismay. I had kind of hoped that maybe there could be two wish granting dragons instead of one, as that would up our firepower considerably, and even with the threat the dragon balls continuing to exist in that scenario presented I could just undo the bad wishes if they happened.

"I am tied to the dragon balls. To change their form, to destroy them even if to absorb them into another being, would be to kill me. And making another set would take 100 days by Kami, and simply split my power, and could hypothetically violate the terms of the wish if the wishes kept getting granted by the dragon balls and myself before you could grant any each year." Shenron closed his eyes. "I am old, and although I have seen many wishes I cannot truly call my life exciting. Most of them have been selfish and insipid, and it gets very repetitive. The opportunity to have a child is one that no other eternal dragon has ever had. I do not mind this. In fact, for the first time, I feel I myself have a wish. Do you wish this as well, even knowing the consequences?"

"I do."

He reached down a claw, and struck me with lightning. As it coursed through me, my body changed to the shape and features of a tiny green dragon, though I kept my floppy dog ears, and a considerable amount of my fluffiness in the form of a proportionally larger and shaggier mane than Shenron's, though my belly was yellow and scaly. As this happened, a doggish form raced out, having just returned empty handed from Master Roshi's house and completely unaware of the nature of the transaction happening, and screamed:

"NO!"

It was my father, and to his eyes he had just watched me get struck by lightning.

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Not totally sure why I wrote this, it's very strange. Also, I can't remember if they'd actually met Master Roshi yet at this point.

This was just a random idea in my head, mostly born of frustration that so many of the DBZ plots could be stopped if the characters were just plain smarter with their wishes, or if, I dunno, the Namekians made dragons that /didn't/ just grant the wishes of any evil villain who walks by? What the heck is up with that? This story isn't too terribly serious, but may explore the concept of unintended consequences that could come from trying to 'help' a universe that would have worked out fine without interference anyway.

This will probably be short, although I will write a few more chapters. Anyone who wants to steal any of the concepts, feel free, I'm not possessive over my fics.

If continued may end up featuring granting 'selfish' wishes in underhanded ways, harassing poor Piccolo (I AM YOUR FLUFFY DRAGON FRIEND, LOVE ME) and some consequences of dragon balls not actually existing on Earth anymore...


	2. Chapter 2 Learning to Use Dragon's Power

**Tiniest Fluffiest Eternal Dragon**

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"WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SON?" Shu screamed. If you've ever heard a dog scream, you know it's a chilling sound, especially if one was expecting a howl instead.

"Father! It's okay, it's me!"

"M-mushu?" he whimpered. "My boy?"

A very grumpy Pilaf and Mai landed a little later in a nearby field. "Your boy is a traitor, that's what! He lied about the dragon ball! And... now look what he's done to himself and my precious balls! They've all turned to stone! Well, stonier!" Pilaf sniffed. "Unless... is this some sort of plan to grant your emperor lots of wishes?" the blue pest's eyes grew wide and gleamed with greed at the notion. "In that case, all is forgiven!"

"I intend to be mostly neutral in order to keep the powers in balance, but I could grant you a wish when I get my full powers, yes," I said hedgingly, and was immediately greeted by cries of dismay from Goku and his friends, except Bulma, who just frowned, perhaps not quite as clueless as the rest. "What you wanted most out of being Emperor was riches and everyone to bow down to you and call you a fancy title, right? You didn't have, say, a particular ever lasting love of paper work, right?"

"See, that pup - that dragon puppy is evil! Oh Shenron, why did you have to grant that wish? Now I'll never get Grandpa's last possession back!" Goku said with dismay, and I did feel a little sorry for him. I'd totally forgotten he had emotional attachment to the four star one. Although the way he had his kid in the series wear it on his head was just dumb. Way to paint a target on your kid's head.

"No, of course I didn't want to be Emperor of the World for the paperwork, you fool! That idiocy is exactly why I should be the one in charge!"

"Exactly as you wish, then. A title, and no paperwork. When I have the capacity to grant this, that is. Which will not be for another year, at least."

Shenron chuckled, seeing where this was going. He was certainly old enough to recognize a rules lawyer when he heard one. "**Come**. It is time to complete the rest of your wish. For your first lesson, rise into the air and follow me as I gather clouds and electricity from the sky."

I clumsily picked myself up and summoned my power, which interestingly seemed to concentrate in my horns the most, and ended up flipping myself upside-down as I levitated slowly. Whoops.

"Mushu! I'm your father, not, not... not this big scaly monster! You can't just let him steal you away from me?" the last came out more like begging than a real demand.

I cast an apologetic look back once I had righted myself and was looking a little more like a proper, dignified dragon. "I'm _sorry_, I... I have to do this. You don't know the threats that are coming."

"What threats?" Trust that to perk Goku up immensely instead of scaring him, and for the others to have the opposite reaction.

"Too many, over many years. I believe there is a tournament coming up?" I said, memory hazy. "You should train for that. It will help prepare you for what it is to come." And keep you occupied and not bored without dragon balls to chase after. "Perhaps in a year, you will think of a better wish than boyfriends and underwear as well, yes?"

Bulma blushed and eyed another fighter, the guy with the evil - sorry, I mean blue and probably perfectly nice, cat. "I think I might've already found one anyway."

Yeah, that relationship wasn't going to work out, that much I remembered. Some things you just have to live through for yourself.

"Goodbye, Mushu," Shu said softly, tears dripping down his face. I felt bad I couldn't muster the same level of reaction back, although my inner puppy that wasn't quite gone wanted to yip and lick his face. Was this what all healthy parent-child relationships were like? The parent always reluctant to let their child fly the nest? Literal, in my case?

"Goodbye," I intoned.

Shenron rose and streaked off into the dark gray sky, and I shot off after him, ready to begin my training.

* * *

We started with lightning, the sharp scent of ozone in our nostrils and intense heat sparking past our scales, and it was

**_amazing._**

I knew I was only managing this because he was channeling his power through me, but I could feel everything around me. In fact, it was almost overwhelming in sensory detail, gifting me details about every little speck of water vapor and maps of negative and positive energies, and even small microscopic life forms that had managed to float up into the sky on the wind and were flailing about rather haplessly in the storm but quite capable of surviving being rained out to the ground.

I reached out my little claw to one extra large bolt, intending to channel it like I'd just watched Shenron do, but he blocked me and lowered us both to the top of a mountain to talk where the storm was a little quieter and thunder not booming inches from our ears.

"You can only manipulate a certain power level at once, but you have a great deal of stored power," he said. "You must be careful. It is not impossible for you to be destroyed. A year is merely the minimum between wishes, because the power involved in granting one often involves multiple steps that combined would add to more than your base power, and that requires a great deal of time to build up. It is not unlike some of the fighting techniques that build up power over minutes to exceed a given fighter's normal strength, but many times multiplied, but unlike it in that a 'wish' cannot be dodged. That is part of how mass resurrection is possible, but mass death far more limited. Simply moving a spirit that is not too far gone is well within my power level, even if it is higher than mine, it is not the same as creating that power. The longer the spirit has been dead, the more difficult it is to move back, so multiples past a year of death are not possible as one uses a year's worth of power alone."

"So you definitely can resurrect someone dead a long time if you wait longer and do just one, though?"

"Correct. Feel me manipulate the energies of this dying bug, then its soul. Do you feel the difference?"

"I do. You still need to repair the body, though."

"That's another reason for recent death to be easier than older, less work on the repair. The power generally travels with the passed away spirit, so it is not as difficult energy wise as you might initially imagine."

"That explains a lot," I said thoughtfully.

"Now try resurrecting the bug," Shenron told me, reaching out his finger and zapping it. My inner pedantic noted that it was actually a spider, which isn't a bug.

I tried, but my first impulse led to change in its fading energies instead. "Um..."

"No, not the energy, its spirit. Follow it to the land of the dead."

I just looked at him cluelessly. Normally, I'm quick on the uptake, but there was not exactly a physical path here for me to take.

Shenron paused. "Forgive me, I have never taught before. Of course it would be easier to just show you!"

And then, suddenly, his tail wrapped around me and we were there, at the pearly gates, though not the ones most people would be expecting, this one guarded by horned and very bored looking entities who didn't even notice the tiny halo'd wisp of the spider hovering, although they did blink in surprise when I toddled over and yanked it into my clawed paws as gently as I could manage.

"I didn't know eternal dragons could get that small."

"I didn't know eternal dragons could have babies! Wait 'till we tell the guys at the office!"

I focused, and this time I could feel a trail of Shenron's energy leading all the way back to Earth, though not in any normal direction. It was like an extra dimension almost, but maybe 'wormhole' was more appropriate as it seemed fainter and just abruptly dropped off when it moved that way. To Shenron's approval, I sent myself through without any troubles this time.

With one lucky little spider.

"All the information you need to recover their body back to its original state is there. You simply need to copy that state from the spirit and move every molecule of their damaged form back into it."

I started to, and groaned. There were so many pieces! "I think this is going to take a lot of practice... Unless you have a tip?"

"Focus on the whole, not the exact details of every little piece, and pasting the information over."

"Right, right, copy and paste..." I continued, and encountered a roadblock. "What do I do with extra stuff that needs to basically be removed and flat out replaced? Just... dump it somewhere?"

"Absorb it back into the dragon balls for energy. Even if in this case the dragon balls will be inside yourself." Shenron nodded to the floating, rotating currently colorless balls with stars on them. "About that... at some point, you may find yourself so harassed for wishes that you desire a break. Keeping at least a single ball that you can spit out of your body when you desire and others can chase for awhile to give you a break could be helpful. That is in fact one reason why the dragon ball was broken into 7 in the first place, to delay the time between wishes."

I sat on my scaly rump. "I appreciate the suggestion but I'm not sure that would work these days, considering they've invented a dragon radar. They can literately find the dragon ball within a year now, so it's no different from the year long break. Still... if I ever feel like giving people a challenge when I have multiple wishers yelling and have no preference over any of them I guess that could resolve the dispute, although frankly one might as well just throw a tournament considering that just turns into a beat down anyway once someone has gathered most of the balls and the others try to steal them." It was something to contemplate, at least. "But wait, if I do that, won't I _have_ to grant the person the wish?"

"I have always felt compelled to, but perhaps you will be different. You were not created like I was, but born," Shenron said uncertainly. "You would certainly not be able to grant a different person further away a wish since the dragon balls hold the power, so at best you would just get to refuse."

"Sounds like too much of a risk. Maybe if things are very safe and I was _very _bored," I muttered. "I'm still not sure why your creator decided random wishes were such a great idea rather than letting you decide when to grant them, it's not like you are stupid."

Shenron stilled his coils. "I am not sure either. He was very idealistic, I think, a side effect of splitting himself in half and getting rid of his evil counterpart, so simply assumed most would make good wishes I think."

"...that sounds like a terrible idea, frankly." Splitting in half to get rid of the 'evil' part, really?

"He did not have much choice, if he wanted to be guardian of the earth he needed to be pure of heart."

I tilted my head, horns nearly scratching the ground. "Pure of heart? Okay. Still getting used to these concepts, spirits, pure heartedness having physical consequences, but I guess that's just how the world really works here."

"May I ask a personal question of my successor?"

"Of course," I was surprised at the politeness of the big green guy, but then, he'd never been mean. Heck, granting wishes without screwing the wishee over was as opposite of mean as you could get really.

"You often speak as if you are wise beyond your years and know of a world, or at least a timeline, different from this one."

"Yeah, you could say that's right. I remember an alternate timeline with no King Dog or non-human people for that matter, and if there were real dragon balls I never encountered them, but I also remember parts of a future timeline where they did exist but I didn't." That seemed as good a way as any to put it, I supposed.

"Strange, but no matter, I suppose. It explains why you learn very quickly. In fact, I think you have grasped the basics of what you need to know already. If you do not have any questions, I believe I should take you to meet my creator now, for I believe I will need his help to fully grant your wish. His name is Kami." Shenron began to move off through the sky again.

Kami. I felt slightly intimidated. What if he didn't approve of me coming in and basically causing the end of _his _dragon, not that he seemed the type to spend much time with poor bored Shenron? If my intuition was right about this relationship, he could Unmake me very easily, and maybe even command me around. That was probably the biggest, most massive downside to the whole thing, even more than likely often needing to spend most of a year or longer sleeping to regain energy.

"Ah, maybe just a few," I said hastily, dragging my feet. "How about granting riches? Or titles? Wouldn't the latter involve some form of mind control, and possibly the former in a credit based economy?"

Shenron slowed down. "Do you really think altering a small part of a person is more difficult than killing them outright? Provided the person is weaker than your power level, you can easily change them."

"So I can't modify all our enemies that arrive to destroy the earth to suddenly want nothing more than peace and hugs. Got it." That had actually occurred to me, and it seemed too easy, so I was almost relieved. Except not, because who cares about too easy when it means staying alive?

"Mentally altering people is very morally dubious," Shenron noted with a mild huff of disapproval.

"But you've done it before," I noted. "You granted a wish to an ancestor of the Dog King of Earth, didn't you?"

"I did," he admitted. "It is one reason I am not sorry to see things change. He may have made me, but I do not completely agree with all of the choices of my creator. Now, if you are done delaying..." I gulped. He could sense I had asked that to delay more than out of curiosity? Remind me never to play poker with another eternal dragon or telepathic species. "I will teleport us to Kami's house. It is not substantially different from transporting to the spirit world, but pay attention none-the-less of the differences."

The question was, if he didn't agree with his creator, would his creator want to change things as well?

Or would he demand Shenron get rid of me and for once fail to grant a wish?


	3. Chapter 3 First Wish

**Tiniest Fluffiest Eternal Dragon**

* * *

"You know, we really don't have to do this just yet," I whispered, floating by his green shaggy mane before landing. "I thought it could be fun if we hung out for awhile, we don't need to be eager to see you die right away! I'm certainly not."

"That is very well, but we should at least tell Kami even if we do not complete the wish yet. I need to know if this wish will be in vain or if I must try to salvage it best as I can or do another. I pride myself on never leaving a summoning without at least a completed wish, even if I couldn't fulfill the first one." Shenron could be surprisingly quiet for such a huge being, when he wanted to be.

We were greeted first by Popo, who looked down upon me with a very blank stare and a voice that was difficult to decipher real emotion from. "Well well, what is this, Shenron? A smaller version of you, when I know for a fact Eternal Dragons have no offspring? How very out of order. Kami will certainly want to know of this."

"I'm coming, Popo," Kami said, hobbling out. "I'm not as young and spry as I used to be. Now, Shenron, what is the meaning of this? I know you are meant to grant only one wish, but I have felt you engage in acts that could easily cover multiple: transformation, teleportation, channeling lightning, and even bringing back the dead." The namekian gazed down at me. "And this. It should be impossible for you to go rogue, and yet this makes me wonder."

"I have not gone rogue, Kami. This is all aspects of one wish. The little one wanted to become a dragon that could grant wishes as they pleased. I have done the best I can, but I need your help to grant the rest of the wish as I cannot manipulate the dragon balls as you can." Shenron's massive coils swished, and I wondered if I would ever get as big. It seemed impossible when I was close to the size of one of his claws right now. "The dragon balls must be merged. I am aware this will likely end my life, and I am fine with this."

Kami looked displeased and pursed his lips. "Shenron, I do not know about this wish. It goes entirely against the intent I had for the dragon balls, and lately with the selfishness of people I have been wondering if I should not destroy them outright. You should have told this being you could not grant this. How do you know they are pure enough of heart to wield such terrible power?"

"Kami, you** know** to destroy the dragon balls will kill me just as well as granting this wish would!" Shenron roared. Kami took a step back at the normally placid dragon's outburst. "Do you really think so little of me you will allow me no say in my own death? Am I just a tool to you? For what it is worth, this little one is the first to ever want to have _fun _with me, and one of the few to compliment me and actually mean it."

"Shenron..." Kami said, surprise filling his tones. "I had no idea you felt so strongly. Or that you even had a wish of your own. Very well. I will merge the dragon balls into one, and then when you are ready, take it into yourself and connect its power to your own instead of Shenron." The sage looked grim. "This last step will indeed kill you, old friend. Had I known, I would have happily spent time with you, although I am afraid I do not tend to be much fun in my old age and cannot really remember what I was like as a youth."

"Ah, if I may speak," they'd been kind of talking over my head like I wasn't even there. "I'm Mushu, by the way. I don't think it's too late for you two to spend time together. You could tell me stories of old wishes, maybe? As precautionary tales if nothing else?"

Kami looked down. "Oh, but where are my manners? I am Kami, this is my lookout, and my companion is Mr. Popo. I would be delighted to tell you stories. Mr. Popo, would you please fetch us some tea?"

"You could tell stories as well Mr. Popo, if you have any," I suggested, feeling faintly creeped out by the man's blank wide eyed stare but not wanting to get on his bad side or be rude.

"Hm," Mr. Popo said, noncommittally, summoning up a tea set from seemingly nowhere and pouring.

"...he can take time to warm up to people," Kami revealed, bending over and making exaggerated stage whispers.

I laughed and accepted as carefully as I could the fine china cup in my little claws when it was offered, only spilling the tea on myself a little bit.

"Now, long ago, the dragon ball really did used to be just one ball..." Kami began, and we all settled down, even Shenron who very awkwardly draped his coils around where he could of the floating platform, taking up almost the whole area and even then having a considerable amount of tail dangling off, to listen to the story.

* * *

I continued practicing my powers over the year, careful to mostly practice small things as I didn't want to over-expend the energies. If I remembered right, nothing bad happened the year after Shenron's last summoning, that was mostly a training saga, so I didn't have to worry too much. I should have one 'free' wish to use as I pleased without worry of the consequences, then I would have to wait most likely, then should have another free period in Goku's teen years and before Gohan turned into a toddler, although I didn't really remember much of Dragon Ball beyond 'they fought the red ribbon army', which hopefully would just disband in this timeline without any dragon balls for them to go after. If that worked out nicely maybe I'd get a number of 'free wishes' to use as I pleased without worry.

What should I do first? Well... while I had flown around the world looking for good opportunities for just this question, I was still kind of reluctant to see Shenron go, honestly. I had warmed up to very few people in my life, but I found him to be something of a gentle, sensible giant with a roar louder than his bite (and he definitely roared when I pounced on his tail one time... or twice; hey, I was still a juvenile and used to be a puppy, forgive me!) and he'd kind of grown on me. Doing something like nudging the Z fighters into asking for power and turning them into saiyans so they'd have more fighting relevance later on could wait.

"You know," I said, trying not to sound too disappointed. "It's been about a year, time for someone else to have the chance to get their wish." I couldn't be selfish and hog it all to myself forever. If nothing else, the energy would run out. "Maybe, one last time, just as an example, you could show me some actual wish granting? It's different when I can actually sense your manipulation of the energies in the process, so it won't be like last time you granted a real wish."

Shenron gave a proportionally small but still quite massive dip of his head. "If it is not too large a wish. The dragon balls have not gotten a proper rest this last year, but they did have a long gap between wishes many years before that. Then it will be truly time to say goodbye... and you will turn to stone."

_And you to dust. _I thought in turn. "Alright, this new country I've never been before, let's fly over it and settle somewhere. I'll ask a small child for their wish or something. They'll probably ask for ice cream," I mused aloud with amusement. "It could be cute."

"You didn't ask for ice cream."

"...true. This could end up being disastrous. But that's the joy of my wish, that I get to say 'no', yes?" I tossed back my emerald mane. I'd grown a tiny bit but not by much, mostly lengthening out my tail a bit. I suspected my body was going to compete with the dragon balls and wishes for energy expenditures, in which case I might stay small for a very long time. I definitely didn't expect to grow when I was turned to stone, at least.

_"_Over there, that child is familiar. I believe you know them. Is that the tournament you spoke of?"

I whirled, startled. My vision was much sharper and more eagle like, but it never really came to me intuitively to think to look at something in zoomed in detail from over a mile away when at first glance everyone seemed like blurry ants at that distance. "Why, you're right, there IS a tournament. That's Goku fighting. I don't recognize the other combatant." It was sort of soothing to my ego he hadn't grown much either in this span of time, although he didn't expect to become a mile-long dragon either.

I landed on the top-edge of the stands, causing the more observant members of the crowd to look up and gasp at the pair of dragons that had suddenly shown up. I saw one of them was Chiaotzu, which reminded me I had no idea when he had shown up in the series or where he came from, but he actually seemed to be some sort of royalty here to my surprise. At least, he had the best seat.

"Eternal Dragons! You're here!" Goku said with excited surprise. "Did you show up to see me fight?"

"Eh, why not? But I want to know, did you ever come up with a better wish?"

"Oh, actually, yes!" Goku straightened. "Can you revive Bora?"

"...who the heck is Bora?"

"Mushu, you should use your powers to find out that information," Shenron instructed. Right, my bad.

"He's a father who was killed brutally, flung on to a spear. I want to revive him so he can be reunited with his son," Goku said helpfully.

Damn, I didn't remember this part at all. And here I thought I'd be free not to worry this year. This just went to show how little I could take these things for granted. "That is a good wish," I said somberly. "Alright, Shenron, if you are ready?"

"I was always ready." He levitated the dragon ball, now just a single one and larger than the originals. "This is a simple wish we've gone over before. I believe you can grant it yourself. Goodbye, Mushu."

"Goodbye, Shenron."

Then without further adieu, he pushed the ball into my chest and it sank into me, and I gasped at the sudden feeling of increased power. The little breadcrumbs I'd been tasting before barely compared. It was heady. But I could also feel Shenron's connection to it snapping as he did so. "You didn't have to just yet, you could have granted the other wish first. Why?"

"I didn't want to risk turning them to stone before I completed _your wish, _little one. As even now they are straining to. Hurry up..." he said as he started to vanish, scales crumbling away with every word. I could feel what he had pointed out, that they were barely being held back now by Shenron's will alone, and that was fading fast. I replaced his and quickly went to work, feeling out the path of the soul, its position in the long line before the gates - lucky, that it hadn't been processed yet - and tugged it back, using the information encoded in the spirit's body to repair the mortal one before pushing it in to its old home. Naturally, I did not leave the body on the spear either, as that would make it quite difficult to repair it and undo all my efforts as well. I transported him next to his little boy.

"Your wish is granted, Son Goku."

And then, right before an audience of thousands, I turned to stone.

The crowd roared.

* * *

When I next came to, it was a dark warehouse of some kind, to my bafflement.

I had been hoping to have a little more time to fly off, I know the original dragon balls did. Perhaps that was a goof of squishing them together, they didn't know which way to fly now if they were all trying to tug in different directions? I'd have to talk to Kami nonetheless.

A camera monitor suddenly beeped as I made the motion to stretch, and a door shortly opened wide.

"Ah! The young dragon awakens!" Several men strode in, and I thought I maybe vaguely recognized them from the show but was having trouble placing them. Apparently whoever they were I found really forgettable. Villains of some kind? "We are the Red Ribbon Army, and our leader wishes for you to grant him a wish!"

Oh. Those bozos. I remember my father Shu talking about them and seeing their mugs on the news as incredibly dangerous, even more powerful than King Furry's military, which made me wonder why the hell they chased after the dragon balls instead of just conquering the planet the old fashioned way.

I sat back on my haunches. "I'll have to think about this. I've only just woken up from a year long nap, I don't feel like going back to sleep just yet."

"Understandable, quite understandable!" a red-headed man spoke, a little on the shorter side. "If, uh, my men would just leave us for a moment - especially you Black, how many times have I told you not to loom over me?!" he barked at a much taller man, who quickly stepped aside from him. "We could talk privately about the wish, so you can get right to it when you _do _feel like granting it!"

"I don't see why that's necessary, sir, we just want the Red Ribbon Army to dominate the world, it's not a complicated wish."

"Gah! I'm the leader here, not you! What if it needs to be phrased delicately, huh?" So he had some other wish he didn't want them to know, hm? What could be worse than world domination?

The real question was, how many people did they kill to get to me? It was hard to imagine Pilaf just giving up on his quest, but he was pretty sneaky so he was likely still alive even if he'd gotten into a scuffle. Shu would keep him alive, at least. I rose into the air and did a mental sweep over the energies of the earth. The population still seemed large and healthy, that was good. That didn't mean they hadn't killed anyone, though.

"Does the question need to be delicate?" his staff officer asked.

"No, I'm not usually a malicious wish granter unless you really piss me off," I said off-handedly (off-claw?), enjoying the way they all immediately paled.

"W-would you like any kind of refreshment, dragon sir? Something to eat?"

"I actually don't get that hungry or thirsty anymore," I remarked. "I think I feed on energy actually..."

I had a tentative theory about that. I had sharp teeth, but only predators needed sharp teeth. I was also green and tied to Namekians and didn't normally reproduce, even though if it was anything like Namekian reproduction it would be asexual. What if in the ancient past, dragons had been wild creatures on their planet that ended up domesticated and no longer able to control their own reproduction, which originally used their 'wish' abilities to instantly kill creatures weaker than them and take their energy? Bonding to Namekians gave them a steady, safe supply of energy instead, and in return the Namekians got wishes to use.

The theory made a lot of sense, but knowing Dragon Ball Z anything that made sense was probably_ less_ likely to be true.

Just then, there was a loud explosion.

"Ignore that! General Blue, I thought you took care of them! Go!"

"I thought I did as well, sir! I'm sure this is all Colonel Violet's fault somehow, you really should never have let women into the army." The blue eyed man saluted and ran out, leaving the staff officer and the short leader. Ugh, murderous misogynists. My least favorite people.

"So. What is your real wish, hm?"

"Well..." strangely for a man who had no compunctions about killing, he looked very sheepish. "My real wish? I wish to be taller!"

Staff Officer Black looked appalled. "Sir, how could you? What about your men going out to die for you at this very moment? They believe in you, sir!"

"So, you went and killed a bunch of people to acquire me, and are still doing so, for terribly selfish wishes... be it world domination or greater height, did you really think this would impress me?" I snarled.

The short red headed leader - I still didn't know his name, actually - turned toward me, knelled and begged. "Please! It's all I want! If you disapprove of the killing, I'll stop it all! Just make me taller." As he spoke, Officer Black pulled out a gun and shot him in the back. "Ack! P-plea...se."

The short man dropped to the floor, at the same moment a very familiar face burst through the door, perhaps an inch or two taller: Goku, with his friend Krillin.

"If you will not grant my wish, and Commander Red will not lead, then I will simply have to take over the Earth myself!" Officer Black, now presumably General Black, shouted. He held up a radio. "Men! Apprehend the intruders!"

"Oh no you don't!" Krillin yelled, and whacked with a staff the radio right out of his hand. It was a bit too late though, they were almost certainly already coming this way.

"Hey, great Eternal Dragon? Can you bring back everyone who they killed back to life?" Goku asked, completely unperturbed at the thought of an army coming their way.

"If they died recently enough," I confirmed. "The longer ago it was, the more difficult it is." With some amusement I realized as phrased this wish would technically include General Red himself, would it not?

"That's weird, I thought you could grant any wish," Krillin pouted. "What kind of eternal wish granting dragon are you?"

I chuckled, not taking too much offense from what a little bald kid had to say. "A better one than you, I bet. How many people have you brought back to life, buster?"

Krillin sputtered. "Yeah, well, I'm not a dragon! And maybe we should get moving?"

"_Will_ you do that wish instead, then? We came here for you. Did you know that after you turned to stone I picked you up and looked after you? But the Red Ribbon Army crashed my wedding, which I'm sure was gonna have really great food," Goku said mournfully.

"You did?" I said, not sure why I was surprised, but somewhat touched all the same. "That's sweet, I guess." Though they might have just picked me up because they wanted wishes, which was why I was a little uncertain. I couldn't help but remember how Kami so casually talked about destroying the dragon balls and cutting off Shenron from the world forever. I don't think, looking like animals, that we really rated very high in anyone's pecking order no matter how powerful we were. Another thing concerned me a bit more at the moment though. "Goku, while weddings do have food, they aren't about them. They are about joining two people together into one household and agreeing to raise any kids you might have together. You are_** too young**_ to be getting married," I scolded out of concern. "Why don't we fly over there, sort that out and make sure you get that dinner you wanted instead, and then I grant that wish? The dead are not in any hurry."

Goku lit up, mouth watering. "You will? Sweet!" I wasn't sure if he was more enthused about the food or the wish.

I levitated the two of them, to their delight, although Krillin seemed a little fearful at first and went "Whoa!", and teleported us into the sky high above the facility. Airplanes shot at us, which I mostly ignored, simply teleporting elsewhere again and summoning up a storm to ground them or at least muddle their vision of us.

"My wedding was in that direction." Goku pointed. I flew us off that way.

"Do you know how to fly yet?" I asked, wondering if maybe I was babying them too much.

"Yet?" Krillin mouthed. "No. But Goku has a flying nimbus."

"You'll have to learn that at some point. It's very useful."

Chi-chi had been very disappointed that Goku had misunderstood his promise, but relented and gave food anyway, finding it hard to argue with the wisdom of an eternal dragon... even if I looked like a baby.

"I can still marry him when he's older, right?" she said hopefully. "I think we'd make a great couple."

"If he still wants to, yes, of course." I experimentally gnawed on a bone and cracked open its marrow, just to see if I could still eat and taste. It seemed I could, I just didn't get hungry. Puzzling.

"I don't mind the idea of marrying you for real later Chi-Chi," Goku said. "I really like your meals."

Ah, the way to Goku's heart truly was his stomach, apparently. That wasn't really supposed to be a truism. I couldn't say that it was mine, or that I found such people appealing personally, but then I didn't ask to turn into a dragon with romance in mind. I had fully intended to give up that sort of thing forever even before the opportunity came up as romancing anyone as a _dog_ just sounded embarrassing. No, I was going to make what good I could of my rebirth and try to keep things balanced but slightly better than they were before, ideally with a lot fewer deaths.

It was actually sort of a shame the Red General had been such a jackass and killed so many (a shame beyond the killing people part I mean). Making someone taller would have been the perfect selfish wish to balance out the more selfless ones. This whole balancing selfless vs selfish wishes idea might be harder than I thought, and possibly I'd just have to give it up... except, there were probably going to be far too many good wishes for this to actually be optional.

More importantly for the moment as that issue could wait, I had clearly screwed up. My idea had been to get people to stop fighting over the dragon balls, but I simply got them to fight over me instead. To be fair, I think my turn-to-stone-mechanism was slightly messed up. Next time I woke up, I'd have to fix that.

Then, I'd have to, if nothing more urgent was going on (hopefully not caused by me simply being there either), somehow find the right selfish wish to grant. Thankfully, I already had two 'good' ones in mind, although only one of them was actually good in the sense of positive effects. Hopefully that didn't mean it would end up counting as not-selfish. After that... maybe it was time to see _exactly_ how far this teleportation trick could work. If not directly, I bet I could pop into the netherworld, then when I popped back out, just choose a completely different location, so I should be able to visit anywhere in the galaxy. If I could figure out where things were, which might be the bigger problem. There were a heck of a lot of stars and even more empty space between them, and even if you found a planet it was most likely an uninhabitable junk rock. But so many places was actually a good thing.

If I could teleport anywhere I wanted, I could rest in safety via obscurity. The one thing that concerned me was, the dragon balls always flew around just Earth before, so what if Kami had some mechanism for keeping Shenron leashed on Earth? It really wouldn't surprise me. To be honest, he was probably right about worrying about me going 'rogue', because if I saw an opportunity to stay a dragon but break ties with him I was going to take it. No offense, old man, but this dragon doesn't intend to be purely domesticated like Shenron!

...to be honest, that still felt raw. Even though physically it was a full year after that wish, to me, it was still only a day ago that Shenron had died.

"Alright kiddo, I'm going to grant your wish now. Try not to let them die again, because if they do, I won't be able to bring them back next time."

Goku and Krillin took this news somberly. "We won't!"

Let's hope not everything goes to hell and that they manage to keep that promise.

* * *

Author's Note: This story isn't getting much in the way of reviews, but, it IS getting a heck of a lot of favs, and that is nice I guess! Actually, the first 2 views it got it also got 2 favs which is the fastest I've ever had ANYTHING get favorited, so if it had simply kept that ratio... alas! It was not to be.

Yes, for those worried, I did think of the potential downsides of being an always around dragon, even if the character didn't. However as you can see there are some loopholes. We know Kami can move to the other realm whenever he wants, so I assume Shenron can as well, and if you can be summoned anywhere and can teleport your wishees anywhere, it seems safe to assume you can teleport yourself if you really want. It would be very odd and arbitrary if you couldn't.

I also don't know if I'll be incorporating anything from Dragon Ball Super, as I'm not really familiar with it and it seems to kinda contradict past information in the series: if the dragon balls are just splinters off of a super dragon ball or whatever then how can they be destroyed and recreated, which seems to support the 'the Namekians actually knew how to construct them, not just shave them off a previous construct' idea better? I do kind of like Beerus though, but he offers another issue in that it really weakens things if Freeza killed the Saiyans because he was ordered/asked to and not just because he was a paranoid shit. That added absolutely nothing to the series and just detracts from Freeza's wonderfully awful character by spreading the culpability.

...is it bad I can only remember the Dragon Ball Z Abridged Mr. Popo?


	4. Chapter 4 Of Useful Selfish Wishes

**Tiniest Fluffiest Eternal Dragon**

* * *

_Note: I apologize for anyone who really wanted this to vigorously follow canon, it's probably just going to start deviating more and more from here. I'm just going to steal random bits from movies and the series and, where they contradict, choose as I please, as one reviewer suggested I should. For those wondering, I added the negative energy concept simply to make things a little more challenging / give the dragon some excuse to grant a greater variety of wishes, because let's face it, resurrecting people for the 500th time gets dull fast. You can see in this chapter where I'm going with it and let me know if you hate how I used it__. I personally think it makes things really original, because I've seen no other fic do what I'm planning._

_I'll cover how immortality can work when I get to someone trying to wish for it. At the rate I'm going this story will probably get to that pretty fast._

_...I'm pretty sure I'm butchering Mr. Popo's character because I can't remember it -at all-. It was forgettable, whatever it was. Hopefully there are no giant Mr. Popo fans angry about this._

_I liked the review-suggestion that Frieza/Freeza (I'm to understand it can be spelled both ways) killed the Saiyans partially out of being pissed off by being shown up by Beerus and hating having someone more powerful than him out there that he can't touch, and wanting a target to vent his frustrations on. I might incorporate that if that plot point ever comes up, we'll see, still open to other suggestions too._

* * *

The first eyes I stared into when I woke up again was Shu's. Guilt hit me as it occurred to me that though it felt like only a little less than one year to me (besides the wish-sleep, there was that year flying around with Shenron, but that had flown by very fast), it was years to him since he'd last really seen and hung out with me.

"So," he said flatly, voice disappointed. "What was that about granting our Emperor Pilaf a wish again?"

"Hehe..." I flattened one ear sideways. "Hey dad." Hoo boy. I recognized that tone as 'you are one grounded puppy' tone, one I didn't hear a lot because I was mostly well behaved back when I was a... dog-man-child-thing, or whatever they were called. Did they still have normal dogs in this universe somewhere? How did that even work? Like Goofy and Pluto, it was one of those things that would really hurt your head if you thought too much about it.

"Ehhh?!" Pilaf scrambled up, apparently having been half asleep himself. "FINALLY. We've been waiting all week, dodging those stupid punk kids, trying to get a moment with you all to ourselves!"

"I told you, Shu, that there was something off about your puppy the day we met," Mai definitely wasn't pleased to see me, her arms were folded as she spoke. I hadn't been aware she'd been suspicious of me for that long though! "They were just too aware. Like they were plotting something all along."

"Quiet, Mai. As a father, don't you think I have the right to hear out my child's words for myself? Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I'm sorry, but I had more important wishes to grant. People were dead, families were grieving. Pilaf isn't going anywhere. There's a time limit on how long you can revive people with a wish." That was multiple people and not one, but they didn't need to know that. "Surely you recognize that was a little more urgent?"

"Hmf!" Pilaf scowled, still displeased. "While I understand your logic, people die all the time! Maybe you should have let them just stay dead!"

"Oh?" I said, curling my tail. "So when you die, I should just let you stay dead then? Is that your wish? Very well."

"W-wha-NO!" Pilaf stuttered and then yelled, waving his little blue fists furiously in the air like a toddler. "Obviously you should bring back the important people!"

"Of course," I demurred slyly. "Then you should have no problem, as the Red Ribbon Army killed many people it isn't unlikely that, purely statistically speaking, at least one of them might be important, yes? So even by your criteria I did the right thing."

Pilaf glowered, and Shu looked torn between the two of us, then cleared his throat. "But you can grant his wish now, right?" he said in a peace-making attempt.

"I can grant it this time, yeah, but there's something I want to do first. That annoying turning to stone immediately thing, I want to see if there's anything I can do to fix it."

Shu's face lit up and his tail wagged. "So you could stick around after granting the wish? I'd like that."

"...I don't trust him, Shu. He's up to something again."

"You think I like being turned to stone?" I said snarkily, evading answering it straight because the fact was I definitely wasn't planning to fulfill the wish quite exactly the way Pilaf wanted it. Or maybe it was, it wasn't like I went around reading minds. it could be he really just mostly wanted the title and free ice cream for life.

Mai looked somewhat abashed. "Well, no..."

"Well nothing! My child is trustworthy!" Shu barked in my defense, immediately making me feel bad.

"Alright, I'm going to fly off now, I'll be back-" I started to levitate into the air.

"Actually, could I have a word with you alone for a moment?" Shu asked, shooing Pilaf and Mai away, who were a bit grumpy at being ordered about like that by the ninja dogman but grudgingly complied.

"As you wish," I said, then had a moment of panic as I double checked this hadn't accidentally triggered the stupid dragon ball... it tried to flare for a moment but quelled. Hoo boy, I'd have to be more careful with that one, if it was that sensitive to wording. "Not a real wish, of course, just a normal favor."

"Right," Shu agreed, shuffling nervously. "The thing is..." He held up a photo of a blue-gray dog that looked a great deal like a walking mop. Ugly. Toy breeds were always my least favorite. Glad we weren't relat- "Your mother wants you home. She's angry with me for not taking good enough care of you and letting you run off on your own, and wants to take you in even if it makes her father mad. She doesn't care if you look like a weird scaly flying horned lizard now."

Wait... "My mom is alive?!" I yelled. I was so sure, because it was the most cliche thing ever, that she had simply died in some tragic backstory, or run off because Shu was clearly a bit of a moron for following Pilaf around. "Who is she? Why did she leave?"

"Well, our romance wasn't exactly appropriate." Shu tucked his tail in embarrassment. "Neither of our superiors really approved, hers in her case being her father. She's, uh, Princess Furry."

"...you've got to be kidding me." I buried my face in my clawed hands. "You mean to tell me I'm a literal prince, your son, and you STILL decided to work for Pilaf who wants to overthrow the king?" What the hell, dog ninja. What the hell. It had to be doggish loyalty. Nothing else explained it.

"Actually, you aren't a real heir to the throne, because you're illegitimate. Although that might change soon, because recently her father King Furry has been pressuring her to produce a pup she's his only heir, so they might legitimize you just to get that hassle out of the way. But only if you come back with me to her."

"My point mostly still stands, really. If you love this lady, you have to know working for Pilaf might involve killing her father at some point in order to overthrow him! How is that loving?"

Shu coughed. "Well, we did decide our relationship wasn't working out, mostly for that tiny difference-"

"TINY? Murder?"

"-and that's when I took you, so she could sweep all the embarrassment under the rug."

"I'm an embarrassment, huh?" I growled. "Well. You can tell her I said no. I'm not coming back, not even if she waves the title of Prince over my head." Although if I needed to I was totally nicking that title for use with aliens when I needed a little more respect. Although frankly Eternal Dragon should be all the title I need and if even that didn't work Prince probably wasn't going to make the situation any better, so maybe not. "I can make my own damn planet-"

I froze as suddenly a wonderful, crazy idea lit up in my head.

"Mushu? Little Mush?" my ninja dog father asked in concern. Damn did I hate that 'Mush' nickname. _Mushy_ was even worse.

"Excuse me. I think our conversation is over and I have something _very_ important to do." I levitated into the air and shot off into the sky, flying straight towards Kami's hideout.

* * *

"Absolutely not," rebuffed Kami. "I will fix the issue of immediately turning to stone and staying in one place, and let you at least fly off long enough to rest here or somewhere random on the Earth if you wish just like the original dragon balls did, but that's it."

"But Kami! The wish limit of one and the exact wait of one year between wishes is clearly arbitrary!" I protested hotly.

"It is, but it also exists for a reason. It robs wishes of their specialness if you just grant every wish on earth, and you will drain those balls dry and find the world helpless when it really needs them. And you risk turning into a shadow dragon."

I scoffed. "I'm not going to drain them dry all the time. And I know better than to not keep track of the negative energies produced to counter the positive from selfless wishes!" Although I had to admit to curiosity, if I could turn into a shadow dragon, did that mean granting nothing but evil wishes could eventually turn me into a peace and love light dragon instead? That sounded so ridiculous I was almost tempted to try it.

"Then that makes this modification even more problematic, because it sounds like you are planning to grant evil wishes."

"Not evil," I hedged. "Just selfish. Not every selfish wish is evil, or even devoid of benefits, you know. Or maybe you don't know, because you cut off your evil half. I still think you should merge back with them and confront your inner evils like normal people do, with, like, you know, _therapy_."

"And I keep telling you, I think that is a_ terrible_ idea! Who knows what horrors I could unleash if my evil half got the better of me when I merged again?" Kami shuddered.

"Okay, fine, but I still think you should see a psychologist."

"I'm not crazy!"

"I never said you were! Normal people can see therapists, it's totally healthy and shouldn't be stigmatized any more than going for a check up with a normal doctor!" I protested. There was a crunching sound and I turned my head. "Mr. Popo, are you eating popcorn?"

"It gets very boring around here just tending flowers all day. At least your arguing breaks up the monotony."

"...very funny," I said dryly. "Alright, I see I'm not getting anywhere. Make the modification and I'll be on my way." This wasn't over. I'd just have to do this without him.

"No, no, you can stay a little longer," Popo insisted. "I'm sure you'll win if you keep arguing long enough."

"Har har."

Kami put his hand on my chest, and there was a brief glow. I didn't feel significantly different, so I'd just have to trust that it worked. Not keen on staying around, I flew off into the clouds and got out of sight as soon as possible, and then intoned my first attempt at a loophole in this:

"I wish I could make as many wishes as I wanted, without turning to stone, except as limited by the energies available to me!"

...no response from the dragon balls merged into one inside me. They didn't want to stir up and give me energy for this, not one drop. And my default pool to draw from wasn't enough to brute force it when I wasn't quite sure what I was doing, since I wasn't Namekian.

"Damn! I can't grant my own wishes!" I swore.

I'd have to get more creative. Fortunately, I had been inspired today by the perfect wish. I loved how people were so unspecific with their wishes, hehe. I teleported in front of Pilaf, who leaped a foot into the air, gasping and sending his lunch of noodles flying everywhere, some of which ended up plastered on the top of his head and shoulders.

"You wish upon the Eternal Dragon to become Emperor, do you not?" I intoned in my best deep, impressive dragon voice and... kinda squeaked. God damn it. I couldn't wait to grow a bit. Important things to do first though.

"I do!" Emperor Pilaf said, straightening as he recognized the important moment was finally happening.

"Your wish is in the process of being granted!" I chirped happily.

"YES! Wait, what? In the process?" Pilaf said with dismay.

* * *

Kami froze as he felt a sudden, immense power, and dropped his staff as he felt slightly drained.

"MUSHU!" he yelled, identifying the culprit immediately. "What did you DO, you little snake?!"

"Oh, just go ahead and call him a little shit. You know you want to," said Mr. Popo.

"Mr. Popo!" Kami exclaimed. "Language!"

"They may have a point about you being better off combined with your evil half," Mr. Popo muttered.

"I heard that!"

* * *

I teleported Emperor Pilaf and his most loyal (and even his somewhat less loyal, I knew he had a few) minions to the new soil, and laid down, exhausted. I'd overdone it a bit on this last one, but did manage to conserve some energy in the end by making it a fair bit smaller than the original. It was still perfectly adequate for all purposes, and I could always make it larger later. I felt pretty triumphant. Right now it was just basically a giant garden with various fruit trees, crops, flowers and some insects, but I'd keep tweaking it. I'd transported their castle over too so they'd have somewhere to sleep.

"Welcome to New Earth. Wish still processing. Please wait while I put on the finishing touches, like inhabitants of a variety of species."

It wasn't every day you made a new planet, AND managed to drain away a significant amount of negative energies AND fool an arbitrary wish system into going into a continual, never quite granted wish. After all, I could just keep... tweaking it, a bit. Just to make the wish perfect, you see. Who didn't want a perfect wish?

"No!" Pilaf howled, pounding the dirt. "NEW Earth? What happened to the old one? This isn't what I wished for!"

"Technically, you weren't specific enough. You said Emperor. You are now an Emperor. Are you really going to complain just because it's the wrong planet? I even called it Earth just like the last one!" Really, the hard part had been finding the right place to put it and getting the orbit velocity around the star just right. Space was vast enough I eventually decided to just put it near Earth a little bit closer to the sun. Some systems had no less than several planets shoved into their Goldilocks zone, so it shouldn't be a huge problem. I'd have to keep a careful eye on the green house gases and make sure the orbits didn't yank too much on the other planets, and stabilize it as needed, but, it was a pretty nice job if I said so myself.

Earth's astronomers were probably feeling pretty confused at the moment though.

"I knew it!" Mai scowled. "I knew you were up to something again!" I rolled my eyes.

Shu howled in grief, his trust betrayed by his son once more. I winced, but mostly just felt disappointed in him for not realizing what a great opportunity this was. They didn't even have to fight anyone! Or knock off King Furry from his throne! That should make Shu glad, not sad. But I'd never been good at understanding people, I suppose. I kept expecting them to be more logical, but they never were.

Anyway, I had dissipated enough negatives with the sheer power of the selfish wish that I was actually in the positive right now. And I knew the perfect thing to do with a nice new planet in need of inhabitants, but first... I had in mind another, far more trivial wish, comparatively speaking, but it would help keep people alive so I didn't have to waste wishes bringing them back to life. That would be very annoying.

I teleported to Krillin, who was currently training. "Heyo."

"Woah!" Krillin broke the tree he was punching. "Don't startle me like that! But hey, you're back and okay! I thought for sure you were in trouble when Pilaf kidnapped you. Or, since I guess since one doing the taking was your dad, did it even count as kidnapping?" Krillin sounded very confused. "Maybe _we_ were the kidnappers, come to think of it. Anyway, Goku will be thrilled when he realizes he doesn't have to look for you anymore!"

"Yeah, that's great," I only half-listened. "Look, it must be pretty frustrating for you and your friends to always be lagging behind Goku in power, right? Do you ever wish that you could be more even?"

"Yeah, I do-" said Krillin, then realization lit up in his eyes. "But wait, I can't just selfishly wish-!"

"Yoink!" I bopped him on the end. The magic of the dragon balls protested horribly. It didn't want to grant two wishes at a time and was confused why it wasn't sleeping yet. "Just do me one favor, alright? Acknowledge Emperor Pilaf as Emperor when you next see him, you don't even have to obey him as I'm sure many people don't obey proper authorities, just call him it that's all I ask in return!" The energy stopped fighting with me quite so much, and like that, Krillin grew a tail. "Don't look at the moon or just cut it off! Chaio!" I zoomed off to bop several other of his friends, though not the cat.

_Never_ the cat.

"Wait, wha?" Krillin gaped as I flew away, reaching for his bum. "What _in the heavens_ just happened?"

As far as energy expenditure went, it really didn't compare to making a whole planet. But I was pretty exhausted at this point, so I settled in for a quick sleep before starting step two of my plan.

Actual, proper sleep that didn't involve stone, thank you. Maybe this way I could finally grow a bit to look like a proper dragon.

* * *

"No, Emperor!" Shu and Mai protested.

"THIS IS THE LAST STRAW!" The little blue man pulled out a rice cooker. "I was keeping this in case I needed it, and I clearly do to deal with that terrible brat of yours!"

"Please, this is a terrible idea!" cried Mai.

"Great Demon King Piccolo, I release you! Help me get my revenge!" Pilaf yelled out and reached for it, Mai and Shu diving to try and block him but not reaching in time.

King Piccolo appeared in a poof of smoke, looked around, and said with a deep voice:

"...Where the fuck am I?"

He turned his attention to the three tiny pests, and they cowered.

* * *

"No!" Kami gasped. "Great evil has been unleashed on-"

He paused.

He grew horribly confused.

"Still don't want to call them a little swear word?" Mr. Popo teased while watering a flower pot nonchalantly at this latest dire news. "I bet you a zeni the new dragon has something to do with this."

"Do shut up, Mr. Popo." He pinched his nose. "And I'm not stupid enough to bet with you."

"It's really boring around here."

"...I'll put up three zeni."

* * *

"Please don't kill me! I can tell you about the Eternal Dragon who grants wishes!" Pilaf shouted. Shu looked faintly annoyed at him, his tail untucking.

"Eh, maybe don't tell him about my boy?" he whispered.

"You got any better ideas?" Mai grumbled.

"Eternal Dragon? Why does that sound faintly familiar?" King Piccolo mused. "Yes, tell me all about this dragon, and maybe I won't kill you for stranding me on what appears to be an entirely different planet than the one I intended to conquer."

"It was the dragon, not us! We wished to rule-" normally, Pilaf would have said I, but he preferred to spread the blame on this, "and weren't specific enough, so the dratted thing made a whole new planet!"

"Sort of impressive actually," muttered Shu. "If rather disobedient."

"But it really can grant wishes of the most fantastical kind!" Mai butt in. "You just have to be specific, I think! And it promised to come back soon, so all you have to do is not make the dragon angry, which killing us definitely would do!"

King Piccolo folded his arms. "Very well. But if it does not come within the month, or if it cannot grant my desire, then I promise that I WILL end you. And it will not be painless."

They all whimpered, even though Shu was the only dog person among them.

* * *

When I came back, I was surprised to see a Namekian there.

"...Piccolo?" I asked uncertainly. "You look so much older than I was expecting!" I knew they fought Piccolo sometime during the prequel, but hadn't actually seen much of Dragon Ball, so I didn't know what that arc was like, although I assumed some folks had died. It was not great timing. I was also surprised it was happening so early: weren't these a little more spaced out? Like by a year? First Pilaf making mischief and then this? Still, since I saiyan'ified folks, they should stay alive this time hopefully and not even need the stupid wish.

"...do I know you?" he said shortly.

"Eh? I know I'm a bit smaller, okay, wayyy smaller, but I look almost identical to Shenron, my predecessor! You don't remember your own dragon?"

"My dragon?" he folded his arms and seemed to consider this a moment. "Yes, it's coming back a bit to me now. It's been a long time. But you were always more Kami's creation than mine. What the hell happened to you, why did you shrink? Did some moron wish for you to be tiny?"

"Hah, not quite. I'm not Shenron, I'm Mushu, the new Eternal Dragon! I wished for the ability to grant wishes and fly through the sky because it seemed better than being a-" _dog, _I was about to say when I suddenly spotted Shu right there cowering in the corner, and coughed. "a weak child, no offense to those who like children. I'm glad you didn't kill them by the way, that would've totally screwed up my last wish I was granting."

"I am not dishonorable to those useful to me. A promise is a promise. Provided you can get me off this dull rock, I will not kill them."

Pure evil my ass. Still 'evil', but as evil halves went this one seemed really manageable. He even had a sense of honor! "I'm more than happy to do that for you! I'm not devoid of a sense of gratitude and I wouldn't be here now without you. Here." I closed my eyes and focused, and blink! There we were, back on Earth. Away from cities, because I wasn't completely terrible. "How's that?"

He peered around the forest. "Acceptable, very acceptable. Now, I have a wish I'd like you to grant: my youth."

Oooh, is that why he looked and sounded different? He needed his youth back first? "Sure," I chirped. "But I just did a lot of wish granting and I'm totally tuckered out. Do you really mind if I nap for awhile? Maybe like a really long while? Are you in a hurry?" Then I paused. "Huh, that's weird. I'm not as tired as I was before."

"That's because my energies were unleashed from where they were bottled for centuries, now available for you to use. I must admit, I would rather you take ambient energy from the environment than from myself, so I'll wait while you recover. I've waited what must be over a century, I can wait more."

"That's very polite of you, thanks." Basic courtesy actually, but when someone is flirting with being pure evil maybe reward the baby steps?

* * *

Kami grew alarmed as he felt the evil move back to Earth, and he shouted in Namekian: "_Mushu! Get back here right now!_"

* * *

My ears perked up, and I twisted my head. "I'm sorry, I meant to nap here but I feel like Kami is calling me and I should answer his summons." It felt_ really_ compelling, for some reason. Maybe this was what it had felt like to Shenron when someone had all the dragon balls?

"**Stay!**" King Piccolo gave his order in Namekian, and once again I felt weirdly compelled, but now it was like I was being pulled in twain in two different directions.

I fidgeted, uncertain, hovering back and forth.

"If you go, that old hog will never let you come back, you know."

"Heh, yeah, you're right." It would be for what he saw as a good reason, as aiding his other half willingly technically probably was evil even if it was to keep part of the timeline I liked in-tact he'd even be correct to, but I was going to be selfish here because I'd always liked Piccolo as a character. Someone needed to act as a father to Gohan, at least, because Goku sure was lousy at it. I settled my coils around a tree branch. "G'night."

I hit hard on the metaphorical snooze button.

* * *

You might wonder what I was thinking on that last action.

I was pretty confident he wasn't going to kill me in my sleep as long as he wanted a wish out of me and that there was nothing meaner around yet than he was. Evil people interested in your well being make the best guard dogs. Well, not if you want those who dare to go near you to stay alive.

...I was going to have to delay step two of my plan involving the new planet for awhile, wasn't I? Oh well. I needed to regain a lot more energy for that one anyway.

It wasn't like Frieza's empire was going anywhere, though it would keep growing and genociding unfortunately, but if I made one misstep on that one, I'd be dead. Or worse, end up letting a race be destroyed that at least had remnants alive before in the original timeline.

That's right. I was going to mess with Frieza's planet selling business! Truthfully I was mainly planning on stopping genocide and saving the inhabitants who would otherwise be wiped clean off their planets, not so much the sales themselves. If Frieza only wanted the planets, then hypothetically, simply shoving all the life forms on to a new one (At least temporarily until another home can be found for them or they could even earn the money to 'buy back' their own damn planet) would make all parties 'happy'. If I kept my distance and timed things right with my teleports, I would never have to fight Frieza, which would be suicidal. In fact, I may not have to fight anyone at all, which I would probably suck at, for while Shenron did teach me a few techniques I distinctly recalled Frieza taking a lightning bolt in the show and not even blinking so most of them likely weren't the slightest bit useful to a real battle with sufficient power levels involved. At some point, I was going to have to train, even though it wasn't really my thing.

Maybe that could be step three? Unless one counted turning Krillin, Chiaotzu, and Yamcha half-saiyan as step two, in which case, saving planets worth of people was step three, and training would be step four.

Probably should include 'convince Piccolo and Kami to merge together' in there, but still wasn't sure how to accomplish that one. Maybe I could nudge Piccolo naturally into being less evil?

For now, I would just rest my hopes on his patience and my unbearable cuteness and hang out together while my energies recovered.


	5. Chapter 5 Annoying Piccolo

**Tiniest Fluffiest Eternal Dragon**

* * *

There was one tiny problem with the whole resting business, and that was once I had enough rest to keep my eyes open for two seconds, sleeping all the time was _incredibly boring_.

"I don't suppose you'd like to, I don't know, do a light spar without any energy techniques or something?" I swished my tail. "I need to practice dodging in any case, and you are probably pretty rusty."

"I think you should be focusing on resting your energies as much as possible."

My tail drooped. "Then if a spar is too much, will you play with me? You could toss a ball and I could fetch it! We could use a dragon ball. Or a stick!" I could spit the dragon ball out of my body for a moment, and they were pretty robust, so it should be no big deal to quickly get a ball to toss for a good quick game and swallow it up again.

He looked at me with a total lack of amusement, raising one eyebrow. After a moment I realized how ridiculous I sounded.

"...don't judge me, I used to be a puppy okay?" I said grumpily. "I'm basically still a baby, you know. We teeth, play, eat and _sleep after playing_ and not much else."

"...fine," he grouchily conceded, and held up a stick like it was diseased.

King Piccolo. World's least enthusiastic dragon puppy owner.

"If it makes you feel better, we could pretend it's an EVIL stick."

"Shut up."

* * *

[[What are you doing with Mushu?]] Kami telepathically communicated after another day, worry getting to him enough to contact his evil counterpart.

[[...none of your business.]]

[[It's evil, isn't it?]]

[[Unfathomably.]]

There was a long pause, and King Piccolo said slowly to me, "I've changed my mind. We're sparring."

"Huh?" I said, having not heard the communication. "_Ooh_. Did you pretend it was an evil stick?"

He kicked the puppy.

* * *

"Oh, fu- fork!" I swore one day. Kami had rubbed off on me a tiiiiny bit and his dislike of swearing had me sometimes reflexively changing my swears to something more 'child appropriate'. Shenron had always just shrugged at it in comparison. He really tended not to get angry at anything, he was honestly the most placid thing with teeth the size of a small man I'd ever met. Not that I'd met many of those, mind you, not even that dinosaur that one time I nearly got eaten as a puppy had quite counted as big enough. "I never completed that last wish and it really doesn't like me trying to do yet another one. I simply hadn't been expecting to make another wish, I'm sorry, I gotta go finish that one and then come back here." Loophole abuse. It's great, until you trip over all the loops! "Unless... I don't suppose you'd be willing to accept that blue moron as Emperor, King Piccolo?"

"No way in Hell," he growled. "So you're saying I have to wait a full year."

I winced. "Well, yeah..." If I could magically increase my own pool of energy drastically in that time, I could do whatever I wanted with it, rather than the energy associated with the dragon ball which was devoted purely to wishes made under annoyingly strict rules, but I doubted I could do that much in such time. My starting pool of energy had been truly tiny. I was just glad Kami had altered it so the dragon ball no longer cared about my teleporting or moving from place to place, seeing it as a necessary part of the wish granter business that I be able to get to wishees and to hide from them when I wanted to rest... I was totally going to abuse that like crazy, naturally. Give me an inch and I will take a mile, it's the ninja in me. Or, I wish I could blame it on that but Shu had never been this much of a rules abuser.

He sighed. "To be honest, I half expected this. It is how the dragon balls work after all, the idea I might have to wait a shorter time seemed far too good to be true. But there better not be any more delays after that!"

"It's all Kami's fault, really," I grouched. "He's such a rules lawyer. Why can't I grant as many wishes as I want whenever I want?" I whined, half figuring he'd be sympathetic to take downs of Kami.

King Piccolo hesitated. "Not that I wish to defend Kami, but there are physical reasons why that is not really practical..."

I gasped. "I didn't see it before, but you really ARE his counterpart, aren't you?"

King Piccolo glowered at me, fist raised. "You take that back, serpent."

"Hah! You gotta catch me to punish meee!" I said with more playfulness than sense, it occurring to me a second later that maybe I was pushing a little too far on his patience based on his need for me. I suspect the regions of my brain devoted to risk management aren't fully developed yet - that's why you should really think twice before giving teens automobiles and give them information on safe driving (don't chatter with your friends at the same time or multitask) first, the information really needs to already be in their brain if they're gonna act on it reliably, even if you think of them as generally sensible.

"I WISH YOU TO BECOME BARBEQUE, YOU LITTLE TWINK! NOW STAY STILL!"

We had been practicing dodging earlier, so I did loop-de-loops as he fired angry energy blasts at me. Eh, was he really trying today? Maybe I'd worn him out a bit too much, he'd already yelled at me today for chewing on his clothes and getting drool all over him. The great green pickled man was getting old and if you've ever had a puppy, well...

...you know how we are. Sorry not sorry.

"Actually, I've got a better idea for that wrath of yours. How'd you like to help me get up to some mischief?" I redirected.

King Piccolo paused in his firing. "I'm listening."

"I've had a crash course in Namekian, but I still don't know how to read alien languages. I could use someone with that skill to help me pick out a relatively safe first target with low power levels. We'll be potentially pissing off someone far more powerful than either of us - but they have no idea where we live and I can teleport us out, so it should be safe. Sound fun?" I gave a toothy grin full of sharp teeth. "You can kill as many minions of this guy as you want."

"Someone more powerful?" King Piccolo definitely sounded like he resented the notion. "Killing? Yes, I'd enjoy that. Certainly more than sitting around here."

"Alright. Earth's astronomers have gotten a big boost in funding since New Earth popped up, but that hasn't yet had time to translate into more equipment, so there's only a few planets outside the system we can visit, and most of them are gas giants that we're going to just have to hope also have smaller planets associated with them. You are likely going to need a spacesuit," I thought aloud. "This teleportation business isn't going to be super accurate, but Frieza and his kin controls a huge portion of the galaxy, so our odds of finding a planet controlled by him in the first few tries are hopefully above 50%."

"Frieza, that name doesn't ring a bell."

"He's probably a lot younger than you, so it wouldn't," I mused. "How about the species name Arcosian? Or King Chilled?"

"Faintly. I would have heard it before the split with Kami, so I just can't recall..." he spoke with audible frustration.

"It's not a big deal, we'll raid one of their stations for information. I doubt they'll be expecting teleporters and they have a huge number of species, so we could easily just pretend to be one of their soldiers." This was actually pretty great! I had forgotten the alien language detail and now this took care of that problem and maybe hopefully warmed King Piccolo up to me a bit more, and perhaps got him thinking more practically than just 'conquer the Earth just because'. Actually, that begged a good question. "Uhm, unrelated question, but I was wondering. You want to conquer the Earth, right? Why and what do you want to do with it, exactly?"

"I want to prove my strength, which is why I won't be wishing for leadership with the Dragon Balls. And I will make all crime legal," he laughed. "Survival of the fittest will be the new law!"

"That... actually makes no sense. If all crime is legal, and becoming a policeman thus illegal, then being a policeman would be legal. People would quickly just make society again and nothing would change."

King Piccolo stared at me humorlessly. "I hate you."

Ouch? And here I'd hoped we made progress. Maybe he was joking? Except he didn't seem the type to joke. "You hate everyone," I pointed out.

"..." he glowered at me. "I hate some more than others."

"That means you could hate me less than others! Yay!" I exclaimed, being deliberately oblivious to the point.

"No, you stupid dragon!" He looked ready to tear his hair out in rage, except he didn't have any hair. Maybe that's why all Namekians were bald. They all got miffed at some point and tore it all off and it simply never grew back for the rest of their existence as a species. "I **extra hate** you."

"Well, that's better than triple decker hating me with cherries on top," I said.

"...when are we leaving?" he tried not to groan. "I really need to kill something."

"We can leave right now. Ciao, Earth!" I teleported us to this Earth's equivalent of NASA to steal, I mean borrow, a suit, then teleported us out again. An astronaut bear person looked really startled to see us and toppled over just before we left. "Sorry about that!"

* * *

**Note**: I'm probably not going to do the specific power levels thing because I personally agree with the phrase 'power levels are bullshit' for the most part.

I hope my attempts at humor this chapter weren't too bad. I just couldn't see the premise as anything but comedic: 'giant angry green pickle man has to tolerate a puppy in dragon form for cosmic power to give him his youth back' is not the stuff of deep seriousness.


	6. Chapter 6 Making Chiaotzu's Life Strange

**Tiniest Fluffiest Eternal Dragon**

* * *

A few mishaps with almost teleporting into gas giants and suns as trying to teleport based on photographs of distances many light years away is comically inaccurate at best, I did manage to spot a station. Dragon eyes were much keener than a human's, and far keener than a dog's, akin to a bird of prey's as one might expect of a flying creature. It slightly reinforced my faint supposition that dragons might have been predators once upon a time, or at least 'real' animals instead of purely mystical creations, as it seemed the sort of detail that would easily be overlooked by a creator who didn't actually need keen eyes in their creation, just the ability to grant wishes.

King Piccolo was not really pleased with my flailing around in space, and glared at me solidly (although to be honest, when is he not glaring?) when we finally transported into a station, keeping quiet only because we both knew it would be best not to be overheard as he took the spacesuit off. I'd chosen an area of the station that didn't seem to have any power levels at the moment, but there could still be cameras, so I searched around carefully. Nothing. Not a high security area, then. Actually, looking about, I think I may have teleported us into an over-glorified large closet.

"Hey, want to grab a space mop and pretend to be a space janitor?" I asked him.

"Not in a thousand years. Have you been paying ANY attention to who I am? A _king_ does not mop."

"Right, right, sorry your highness." I carefully poked the door open and scanned the hallways, despite knowing I'd sensed the low power-level that had been in them leaving a minute ago. "Okay, they may not be able to sense power levels very well, but keep your power level down as low as possible, they have scouters and I don't know if they work through walls. Probably not, but you never know."

"I'm not an idiot," he huffed. "I do understand the concept of stealth, believe it or not. But I better get to actually kill something at the end of this. No one here really seems that powerful."

"Right, of course, but you also know the importance of 'know thy enemy' first, right? They could have all kinds of nasty transformations and power-ups or some kind of self destruction sequence for this entire station, and maybe you aren't worried about you, but little ol' me is your ticket to not getting stranded here forever and I'd rather not get blown up."

"Hmf," he grunted, and tolerated me searching around the next room we entered for a computer terminal. I found some buttons, but had no clue what they actually did. There were also several tanks.

"Does anything look familiar?" I asked.

"This is a healing room, it's not going to have the information we are looking for, I believe, unless you want medical information."

"Actually, that might not be the worst idea. Do you think that medical information includes power level information?"

He looked slightly less grumpy and more thoughtful than usual, and turned on the panel. "It might." Then he shook his head. "No good. It only allows actual doctors access to that information."

"Naturally." I swished my tail with mild disappointment. "Even in space they have some concept of patient confidentiality, I suppose? Just our luck. Alright, let's try the next room."

We started to move, then retreated back as a mid-level power level moved into the hall. Luckily, it didn't move into the medical chamber, not needing any healing, and kept on its way to another area with more power levels.

"That way is probably the navigation area of the ship, I'd guess from the cluster of people. Let's go the opposite way then and hope that isn't the only place with a computer terminal besides the med-bay," I spoke and wasted no time slinking out after carefully confirming no more were currently coming in to the hall. "There's another grouping I think is probably a rest area with some bunk beds from the way everyone is very still in it, and another I think is a food court, and finally one that has to be training arena. So that means our best bet is probably where that guy just came from..." I nudged open the door to one of the few remaining options, or tried to. It was locked.

King Piccolo bust it open, and I winced, looking around to see if anyone heard that and hoping it wasn't alarmed. Nothing happened, and we peered in.

Bingo. A computer terminal, in what was probably a back up command room or an engineering room of some kind as there did seem to be a lot of funny machines and one faintly glowing pillar in the center I guessed might be some kind of engine core. The room was a bit hot and sweltering compared to the relatively cool rest of the base, and it did seem to be channeling a fair bit of energy.

Piccolo wasted no time getting in, and I tried to sit up on my haunches to see before giving up and remembering that I could float in the air to look over his shoulder. The foreign text didn't make much sense to me, and King Piccolo was his usual brand of quietness when not being actively nudged into speaking. That said, I could guess from the flashes of images that some options were password locked, but he'd found one that was not and was actively scrolling through it. A few images of planets were scrolled through.

"Success?" I prodded him.

"To a degree. The launching bay is the next room we didn't try and would have perhaps been a better option, but this has much of the same information about missions. We are indeed on a base of The Planetary Trade Organization and they have several planets listed for conquering including who is scheduled to go, and some of these planets have base power levels listed." Interesting that it was not password locked, perhaps because of their strength this is not considered sensitive information. Or maybe they just didn't trust all their minions to remember passwords or had some leeway in choosing what planets you went to so the list was semi-public and open to 'choosing' a not-yet conquered planet.

"Do they have races of those scheduled to go?"

"Yes. This one here is a Frost Demon..."

Belatedly, it occurred to me I might have used the wrong name for the Arcosians and should have referred to them as Frost Demons if I wanted to be completely certain he'd heard of them before, as Arcosian had never really been completely confirmed canon. It was interesting that there was one who wasn't Frieza, they didn't seem to be very common.

Abruptly, King Piccolo went very still, his face slack with surprise.

"Piccolo?" I asked.

"A Namekian," he said. "He looks... he looks just like me but younger. His name is Fargo. It says he's in-process of cleaning up a planet for sale."

Oh. _Oh. _Of course he didn't remember being an alien species! Hell of a way to learn, encountering a minion of a galactic conqueror. Then again, he thought of himself as evil right now, didn't he? Maybe not that shocking. Seeking to distract him, I asked a question that had been bugging me for some time: "Who exactly are they planning to sell to, though, if they keep exterminating planets? Someone has to be buying."

"I'm not sure, but there are listed prices, and it looks like members of the PTO can actually buy from this panel if they have enough coins."

Ah. "It's a scam, of sorts. They conquer your planet, and you can earn money they got from your people and others originally by taking all their valuables if you impress them enough not to exterminate you like the rest, and if you are lucky you can even buy back your own planet or another." His expression was hard to read. Was he impressed, or disgusted, the whole thing a step too far even for him? Or, ah, most likely, was he wondering if they had done the same to Namek? He did strike me as the vengeful type.

I was about to offer some sorry attempt at comfort, his face scrunched in rage, when he said something to change the subject. "Fargo. It says he's blown up a planet. I think he may be more powerful than me."

Of course he was pissed at that. The question was, was he just changing he subject away from something even more uncomfortable, or was he genuinely more fixated on that then the possible destruction of his own people? King Piccolo was very hard to read.

"You'll get more powerful." I promised. "Alright, what are our options?"

"Planet Bas. Most of the power levels are low, says a team called the Ginyu Force is going there."

I flattened my ears. "Definitely not. They are Frieza's most powerful if small group of elite soldiers and would kill us both easily. That just goes to show even if the average power level of the planet is low we can't assume they'll shove only low level soldiers there. We should assume unless it is extremely low level that sending just a few means those few are higher power levels."

"Planet Shikk is on-going, also has just a few, but it's even lower power levels. Vegeta, Nappa, Raditz and Sion. Says they are Saiyans and they are already on day 1 of destruction."

Who the heck was Sion? Then again, there had probably been another saiyan who simply died before the main series started, considering how callously Vegeta treated Nappa and Raditz it would be very odd if he hadn't lost any more soldiers, the prince was frankly not a very good leader, not that I planned to say that to his face any time soon.

"They are tough, but not as tough as they'll be in the future and we may be able to avoid them by going to the opposite side of the planet if they are cleansing it rather slowly..." I mused. "I think this Sion is also a weakling."

"He does have the lowest power level of the group." King Piccolo folded his arms. "Are you saying he's the only one you want me to kill? I was hoping for more than that."

"I'd rather play it low-risk, sorry not sorry," I admitted. I also didn't want to completely screw up the future too much by, say, killing child-version chibi Vegeta. Although, actually, he was older than Goku so probably teenager Vegeta now, not that that was much better. "Just go ahead and give me planet names and lists of coordinates, including of future possible planets to invade that haven't been registered to any invaders yet, will you?"

"Don't think you can just casually command me around," King Piccolo huffed.

"Please?" I rolled my eyes when he wasn't looking. "I can still strand you in the vacuum of space you know."

"And I can kill you with a ki blast," he retorted, but then complied with my request with some grumbling. "I'd rather just get going and claim my kill now. Quadrant 234, 77." He pulled up a star map on the screen, and I studied it and the strange characters carefully, committing the letters for 'Shikk' into my brain as well as what had to be numbers.

"Alright. Let's go."

* * *

Chiaotzu's life had taken a strange turn. First his precious doll Ran-Ran, which bore a slight resemblance to his mother, had been 'kidnapped' and ransomed to force him to search for the dragon balls, which turned out to not even properly exist any longer when a pair of Eternal Dragons - or perhaps not so eternal any more, after one apparently died in front of them all to grant its power to the younger - showed up in front of everyone at the tournament and shocked everyone by granting a wish to bring a man back to life. The man in question had come to beg for his sacred lands to be left alone, and hoped to win the tournament to get the Emperor Child's attention, and it honestly shamed Chiaotzu a great deal he hadn't been more aware of this from the beginning. Certainly, he had no interest in stealing or destroying anyone's sacred lands, and he regretted he had trusted his minister so.

Especially after the man had tried to assassinate him.

In perhaps an even stranger turn of events, one of the assassins had turned on his master and sheepishly returned his doll. "I'm not really good with this sort of 'heroic' thing, but... here is your doll back. I'm sorry we ever took it."

Chiaotzu had stared up at this strange three eyed warrior in fascination, and it was in that moment he knew what he wanted to do.

"Will you run away with me?" he blurted out.

"I'm sorry?" said the warrior.

"You seem kind and strong, and I realize I have been a weak and terrible emperor, little more than a figure head. After I get a new minister elected by the people, I want to leave. They don't need me any more. I'd love someone to train with. We both even have experience with the same master," Chiaotzu pointed out.

"Kind?" the warrior scoffed. "I'm not kind, I'm not nice... you don't understand. I'm an assassin, a cold blooded killer with loose morals who should in no way be associated with a shining highness like yourself. What I'm doing now is the exception."

"You didn't seem so cold blooded when you had the opportunity and the urging on of your master to kill Goku, the little monkey tail boy. Or when you had all those opportunities I'm sure you had to kill me, but didn't. What's your name?"

The warrior faltered. "I'm Tenshinhan."

"Can I call you Tien for short as a nickname?"

"I've never had a nickname before, but... sure. It might be best if I went under a slightly different name for awhile anyway." Tien grimaced. "There may still be other students and assassins lurking around with a grudge for what I've done, turning against the school of Crane like this."

"So that's it then. We both have a reason to need to leave," Chiaotzu said giddily. "We can go together and live as normal people, maybe even heroes." It sounded idyllic.

In practice, for someone who had never needed to earn their own food before, it turned out to be a bit of a disaster. They befriended a beast named InoShikoCho when they had tried to turn it into chow and discovered to their horror it could actually speak, and concocted a plan to pretend to be heroes.

"I can't believe we're really doing this, lying to people..." Chiaotzu said grumpily.

"Oh, come off it. You're as starving as I am, aren't you? We'll all split the profits! It'll work out great." Tien said. He hadn't really been kidding about loose morals.

Chiaotzu's stomach growled, and that decided it for him. "Alright, we'll do this. But let's not hurt anybody."

"Of course not," said InoShikoCho. "I am a gentle beast deep down, you know? But I like a little profit and rich food in my belly as much as anybody else, hah!"

So they all schemed together, and went from village to village perpetuating their scam. It was with some embarrassment they met Goku again and were nearly foiled, but at the last moment they managed to pin it on Goku instead and scram away from the scene of the crime, reputations relatively intact and, more importantly, purses full enough they could still eat food.

It was then the smaller dragon appeared yet again, in what at the time Chiaotzu was sure was the strangest moment of his life, saying "Hey, you'd like to be more powerful, right? Especially against that friend Goku of yours, right, he's a bit annoyingly powerful isn't he?"

"Goku? I'm not sure I'd call him a friend..." Chiaotzu said, baffled. "He's not a bad person, certainly, but..." how to awkwardly explain Goku had actually stopped them from committing a crime?

"I actually beat him the last time I faced him in an official tournament," Tien said, folding his arms and looking a bit annoyed, trying to forget how their last encounter hadn't gone quite that sweetly even if Goku hadn't exactly caught them for their crimes either.

"Is that so? Maybe I'm a little too early," the dragon muttered rather strangely to itself. "Still, better get it out of the way now. Yoink! Don't look at the full moon, or just plain cut it off to avoid causing terrible destruction! See ya!" It bopped them both on the nose, and to their surprise they both grew a _monkey tail_.

Nothing happened for awhile after that. They heeded the warning and were very careful never to look at the moon at any time, just in case.

But if Chiaotzu had thought he was done with strange things in his life, he was sorely mistaken.

An old cat with a cane hobbled toward them on the road and spoke one day: "A terrible evil has been unleashed, and it has sought out the wish granting dragon which grants one wish a year. The dragon must be separated from this evil before the year after its last wish's granting passes, or who knows what terrible evil that being may unleash upon this world. Will you help?"

They glanced at each other, Tien's face full of uncertainty. He was still thinking of himself as the assassin, Chiaotzu was sure. "We would love to!" Chiaotzu answered for them both, and a funny relief showed on Tien's face, like he had wanted to answer that but wasn't sure he had it in himself to.

"Then I will guide you to the Guardian of the Earth."

The location they were brought to was a floating locale in the sky, nothing anchoring it down or propping it up. The Guardian turned out to be an old, green wrinkled bald man with his own cane similar to the ancient cat's, with a pitch-black skinned man with large unblinking eyes and mouth and rounded head who didn't look quite human standing silent at his side. Goku and his friends Krillin, Bulma and Yamcha were also there.

"My demonic counterpart has been unleashed from the rice cooker that entrapped him magically long ago. We were once the same being, but separated when I tried to purge myself of evil in order to assume the role of the guardian of the Earth. Disturbingly, he has kept quiet and sought out the wish granting dragon. I believe it is only because the dragon recently granted a wish that he is lying low now, biding his time for when the dragon becomes capable of granting his wish."

"Doesn't the dragon have the capacity to reject wishes, though? If he's so evil, the dragon might not want to and we thus have nothing to worry about," Bulma said hesitantly.

"That may be, but because we are the creators of the original Dragon Balls it is likely the dragon will feel the urge to help him even against the Eternal Dragon's better judgment. It is also likely that even if the dragon does manage to resist for a time, that my counterpart will feel no compunction against trying to torture them into giving the wish when the time comes. I would like to to mount a rescue before that."

"Of course. I owe the dragon for bringing people back to life when I asked it to, the least I can do in return is rescue Mushu when they are in trouble!" Goku said cheerfully. "This sounds like a fun, strong fight in any case."

"Is that the dragon's name, then?" Chiaotzu asked. "Mushu?"

"Yes. In return for your aid, I offer you the opportunity to train here at my hidden lookout. My name is Kami, and this is Mr. Popo, who will, if you wish, lead you to the hyperbolic time chamber which can dilate time and make a day a year. It is very likely you will not be able to withstand it for very long, but the simple attempt could be good experience for you."

"I'd love to try!" Goku bubbled up.

"I guess I'm game," Krillin said a little uncertainly. "This chamber doesn't have any risk of death or loss of limb, does it?"

"I'll pass and focus on trying to train my radar to look for the dragon. For some reason it's been kind of on the fritz," Bulma said with a frown. "It should hypothetically still work since the dragon absorbed the dragon balls and it is a dragon ball radar."

"I'll attempt it. I don't back down from a challenge." Tien said, folding his arms and eying Goku competitively.

"Well, I don't back down either!" Yamcha said, wanting to look good in front of his new girlfriend.

Chiaotzu was just happy to be there and included. A real quest with a real chance to be a hero! An emperor-prince rescuing a dragon sounded a little backwards, but it was a quest nonetheless, and besides, no one here cared about his secret, and in Goku's case he wasn't sure if the other boy even remembered it.

* * *

Shu was very surprised when suddenly, new people who didn't even look like any Earth race he recognized, though faintly resembling humans wearing shirts, popped up on their new planet. He'd been so sure his own son had just abandoned them there as a punishment for him being such a terrible father and setting some kind of rice demon on his own child, it was both a weird mixture of relief and disappointment when he saw new activity that could only be the result of his own son's work. Disappointment, because his kid wasn't coming to visit them and still wasn't releasing them from this prison that was an entire planet.

Don't get him wrong. It was a lovely planet. But it was hard not to view it as a form of punishment when it was still so empty and they could not leave.

That, it seemed, was about to change however.

"Hahaha!" the little blue midget cackled maniacally. "Greetings, it is I, EMPEROR PILAF, and this is my planet, New Earth! Wait, no - make that PLANET PILAF!"

"He sure adapted well," Mai commented dryly, as equally bored with their new lot in life as basically farmers and occasionally engineers of new buildings and items as Shu was. "I hope these new people are more interesting than his whining."

"Mai! Don't say that so loud, Pilaf might hear you!" Shu cringed. "Do you think this means my child is well, then, despite what happened?"

"He's gotta be, unless these are alien invaders, and they look far too baffled and confused, and-" Mai froze. "Wait, that child right there is injured and bleeding!"

They both ran over.

"Alright Pilaf, it's time to show your worth as a leader!" Mai said, grinning. "Do you have any idea how we're going to heal this injured kid?"

"Uh, wha, I mean-" Pilaf waffled. "BANDAGE HIS WOUNDS."

"Brilliant!" said Shu, tail wagging.

Mai was less impressed with this flawless logic. "Eh, okay. Guess we don't have many other options, do we?"

On the upside, this seemed to endear them to the very confused and upset shirt-wearing people, who moved to let them pass when they realized what they were doing.

* * *

"Nappa, why are there power levels we didn't eliminate disappearing?" Vegeta said scornfully, whirling on the eldest saiyan still alive.

"I don't know, Vegeta. It's very strange," Nappa said awkwardly, never really the most verbally graceful one of the group.

"Of course you don't know, Nappa," the prince of all saiyans sighed. "You _never_ know. Any thoughts, Raditz?"

"It could be one of those cultures with ritual suicides, killing themselves for us out of shame that they are so damn weak and can't stand up to us," said Raditz with cruel amusement, his tail giving a twitch in amusement before he protectively wrapped it around himself tight again and shot at a forlorn defender. "They really are pretty pathetic."

"Numerous little ants though, aren't they?" Sion commented, trying to curry some favor. The one and only fat saiyan in existence, though 'chubby' was perhaps a more apt moniker, that combined with their low power level they had a hard time earning any respect from their fellow saiyans. The truth was, they'd turned to eating to cope with the extinction of almost their entire species, an easy thing to do for a species already rather addicted to food, it was just with their lower power level and relative lessened interest in picking fights than usual (though still very high compared to a non-saiyan) they hadn't been able to burn it off quite as easily as saiyans usually did.

"Not as numerous as the blub around your belly," Vegeta insulted simply for cruel amusement. "Why don't you work some of it off and actually earn your place among us for once and go check it out?"

"But Vegeta!" Sion whined. "It's all the way on the other side of the planet!"

"Exactly why it will be good for you. Are you really back-talking me, the PRINCE of all saiyans here?" Vegeta flew forward aggressively pressing close to Sion's face. "Maybe I should just kill you now. You've only been slowing us down!"

"No, Vegeta!" Sion hastily flew away. "I'll get to it right away! Please don't kill me!"

"What a sniveling worm," Raditz commented as he flew out of their sight.

* * *

_Note:_

_I thought it was fun to shine light on some less used characters, although honestly I still have no idea what to do with Yamcha. I forget he exists half the time, honestly._

_ I feel sort of sorry for Sion here. He's stolen conceptually from a character of the same name from a joke DBZ comic of dubious canonicity which I've never actually read but know exists. That comic also introduces Kuriza, who may become a character or just an egg at some point in this fic, I know they don't get played with very often. __Relatedly, we may be getting a 'Frieza' character tag here soon which means I'll have to replace one of the other character tags, hm. Probably Shu or the OC tag, probably not as many people searching for those. I definitely want to keep the Shenron tag for anyone interested in dragons, even if Shenron is no longer much of a character in the fic he was still very important in the beginning._


	7. Chapter 7 The Not-Wish on Planet Shirts

**Tiniest Fluffiest Eternal Dragon**

* * *

I had been worried at first that mass teleportation would count too much as close to a wish and that I would always have to loophole it with the Pilaf wish, but with a bit of practice I actually had managed to get teleportation to be pretty energy efficient. I only had a move an object an infinitesimal degree out of the 3rd dimension, then back again, and one can move even something the size of a planet a tiny, barely perceptible amount simply by one's own gravity: that's just simple physics for you. The only reason people didn't do this casually all the time was that they couldn't perceive other dimensions, energy wise, it really wasn't significantly more than nudging a coin off the 2d plane of a piece of paper once I'd practiced it, since at first my expectations caused me to vastly overpower it. Well, I expected teleporting a planet would still cost a fair bit and didn't plan to do that any time soon if I had the opportunity to avoid it, it was much simpler to just choose a place and build a planet there if one was planning such a thing. But for less dramatic things? Teleporting was pretty easy and low cost.

My accuracy is getting where I wanted to go when I barely knew the location was still a bit abysmal, however, although I would very much like to see anyone else do better based on the same paucity of information, thank you very much. As such, poor King Piccolo got spaced a few times again. This is why we brought the space suit: I wasn't sure if Namekians needed air. The temperatures of the vacuum might not be exactly comfortable either.

It only belatedly occurred to me I should have asked if I could survive the vacuum, but as it turns out I was completely fine. Mystical dragon and all that.

When we arrived on planet, floating in a cloud to give us the opportunity to scout out the chaos before sinking into it, there were a number of Saibamen causing carnage in front of us, and I had to stop King Piccolo from immediately wailing down on them. "Hey, do you have the energy level for that? Maybe approach this cautiously?"

He paused reluctantly, then spat out several eggs. "Even if I don't, several of my own minions should be able to wear one of these ones down and kill them if they are tactical about it." I could tell he wasn't totally happy (well, not happy at all, in fact) about realizing what small fry he really was in the universe, but there was some relief in there at just being able to get to help destroy something even if he had to be cautious about it.

"These creatures don't seem to be working very well together, just chasing down bystanders. That means it will be easy to get them alone," I observed what he was probably already thinking. "Even if they are similar in power or a bit higher than you, a concentrated shot to a weak point will kill most beings, if these even count as those."

He grunted, and pointed at one that was more isolated than the others and I teleported us down behind it. It was feasting on a woman's flesh, disgusting, yes, but also completely distracted. He powered up a blast and sent it right through its skull, and looked very satisfied as it toppled down. "Finally. A damn kill."

Amused more at his bloodthirstiness than I probably should be, I let him work while I got to teleporting. I guessed we had to be quick about this, but unfortunately many of the surviving civilians were scattered and it was much easier and quicker to teleport groups at a time. If I were a bit more practiced, I probably could have focused on everyone on the planet and simply moved them, but not only was I not quite there yet but I didn't have friend from foe quite down and that could be pretty dangerous. Then again, the foes of higher power level than me would probably resist being teleported and I would be able to identify them that way or simply not be able to pick them up, which would solve the problem neatly, but perhaps better safe than sorry.

I found a few groups that were barricaded together, some already slaughtered en-mass but some definitely still alive in their bunkers. "Hello," I said, focusing on projecting my intent to their minds on the off-chance they couldn't understand my speech, which seemed rather likely. "Do you wish to get to somewhere safe from the invaders? I can take you there."

"YES, YES WE DO!" someone from the crowd shouted while someone more official looked suspicious and more deliberating about the whole affair, and that started off a large wave of shouting and pushing, people saying 'Me first!', 'No, take my child first!' and 'How do we know this isn't a trick?'.

"Your wishes will be granted," I said, even though I was technically doing this under my own power and this wasn't an official 'wish' at all, it was still pretty dang fun to say. Although I could try to roll it under the Pilaf wish if I wanted, considering what I was about to do next, and that had actually been my plan B if I had needed the extra energy... "Link hands and I will teleport all of you at once!"

They clamored to obey, even the skeptics, who had difficulty seeing anything menacing in linking hands. I happily winked them out and back in to New Earth.

The next few groups went in a similar manner, some of them more calm, some of them more panicked than others. One clearly military group simply shot at me without asking questions first, and I was forced to just leave them when even my explanation that I was an eternal dragon there to grant a wish asked by their people to get them all to safety wasn't enough to get them to stop shooting at me.

We had a few more hours to do this than I was expecting, but the inevitable surge of power headed our way to investigate the abrupt drops in power levels - more dramatic than what any of the saibamen were capable of, as I only got better and better as I practiced and was soon doing whole cities at once - still came before we could finish this side of the planet. "Heads up, King Piccolo! We've got trouble." Like I had predicted, they'd sent their lowest level one first, as that seemed to be the typical pattern of behavior in the dragon ball universe to send the weakest lackeys first instead of simply obliterating everything with overwhelming combined force. "They're the one I thought you might be able to take, but, you've been using up energy... are you still sure you want to do this? We rescued a lot of people, it wouldn't be a total waste if we just ran now."

That was not, in hindsight, the best way to phrase it.

"No, I don't just run like a coward," he spat. "If this one is my equal in power, then I must prove my superiority in wit in combat."

Not running away didn't seem very witty to me, but that's just my opinion. "Well, you may want to boldly hide and bravely strike him in the back then," I sassed. "You're running out of time to do that- anddd he's here."

I was very surprised to see a chubby saiyan. I didn't know they COULD get chubby, but then there hadn't exactly been a wide variety of them for us to see the full range of body types in the series, so why not a chubby one?

"Who are you and what are you doing with our kills? Are you killing them for yourselves?" The saiyan said coldly, tail lashing. It was amusing he was accusing us of killing them for ourselves, like this was a bad thing not for the killing but because we were depriving _them _of the amusement of it. "Huh, a namekian and a... what are you, even? Never seen one of you before. This your pet?" he asked Piccolo.

"I am an Eternal Dragon," I said flatly, not wanting to really let Piccolo answer the last one as the answer would almost certainly be a far too accurate _yes_. "Granter of wishes, and when the time came for me to grant a new wish, it was these people who encountered me." Piccolo snorted at this downright lie. "The namekian is simply someone I encountered on my travels who agreed to aid me in return for a wish at a future date." I didn't really want them to know the full connection just yet, if at all possible, and the story was true more or less and might make others I encountered more biddable. "For today's wish, I have been asked by the people of this planet to rescue their species from extinction." I had debated whether to reveal this much, but thought that if things went completely sideways it might grant me a little mercy if they thought sparing us could grant them a wish later. "It will not prevent you from occupying this planet, so please, simply desist and I will cart the inhabitants elsewhere with no more effort needed from you."

"No more effort?" Uncharacteristically for a species that I thought loved to fight above all else, he actually seemed pretty pleased with this notion. "Did you hear that, Prince Vegeta? I'm Sion, by the way. Do you suppose you could grant me the wish-"

An angry voice came out over the scouter. "I did, you blubbering moron! Steal OUR kills, will they? What kind of saiyan leaves a job half-done? And don't you DARE take any wishes for yourself until I get there! If they are limited in supply, then I, your prince, demand first pick! Keep them distracted and stop them from completing their task until I get there! Vegeta out."

"I was going to ask if you could bring my planet, Vegeta, back, not to be confused with our Prince Vegeta there," Sion mumbled in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry," I actually felt a lot of sympathy for this saiyan, which I wasn't expecting at all. "I take one year between large wishes, and I've already granted one of those. And while I could bring back your planet, that would not include its people in that same wish. I may be an Eternal Dragon, but I am not all-powerful," I lamented.

"I see," Sion said with equal softness, looking tired as his tail drooped in the air. "Then-"

Without warning, King Piccolo blasted at him. "Less talking, more 'wish' granting! You heard the pimple over the scouter, we have no time to lose and this one is here to interfere with us! That makes him the enemy!"

"He wasn't even fighting us! Really rude dude!" I exclaimed, but did fly down and start more teleporting again, because while I hated to admit it, the brusque jerk had a point here. Lives were at stake. And soon, Prince Vegeta and his band who, despite the lower power levels they must have at this time, still out-numbered us would be here, and they were not going to be as soft and polite as this Sion had been. I could unfortunately see why he hadn't survived until the main series, he wasn't the sort Vegeta would strive to keep around, and if he'd pulled this incident with a different being Vegeta would have killed him outright, if he wasn't planning to do it this time already simply for the impudence of thinking for himself and potentially stealing a wish.

Sion groaned in pain and gave a quick flash of disappointment on his face, but turned out to have enough of a saiyan spirit that Sion had no problems retaliating and trying his vicious best to try and murder Piccolo, tearing off one of his arms.

"This isn't good, you aren't even at full strength because you don't have your youth, we're forked if we stay here much longer," I cursed. "Let me take you back home."

**"NO!"** he shouted in Namekian and regrew his arm with a wet squilching sound. "I can do this!"

"Damn you and your pride to hell," I growled as he resisted my teleportation. I didn't even really want him to kill Sion, he seemed relatively nice, for a saiyan. Though there was little trace of that niceness now, as he pounded relentlessly on my helper. If that idiot got us both killed because he was too stubborn to admit defeat or that he needed help, I was going to be pretty mad. And what had happened to his gab about using wit? Where was the strategy and tactics in this angry flurry of limbs?

Just then, one of King Piccolo's children launched itself from behind Sion and struck his back. Seeing him cry out and clutch more at his tail than anywhere else struck, it grabbed his tail and held on tight.

"No!" Sion yelped. Piccolo had him at his mercy now, and smiled wickedly as he powered up.

"You fool," crackled a familiar teenaged voice over his scouter. "did you get yourself defeated already? Hold on, we're almost there. Or don't, you're so pathetic I don't even _care_."

"Alright Piccolo, you've proven your power and your grasp of tactics, and I've gotten just about everyone on this side that I can. Let him go, please, and let's go."

He still smiled that uncanny smile. "No."

And he blasted a hole right through Sion's guts.

"Alright," he said with satisfaction. "Now we may leave."

Giving a dissatisfied serpentine hiss, I coiled about him, just in time to see Prince Vegeta, Nappa, and Raditz arrive. A furious Raditz aimed a ki-blast right at King Piccolo's chest, releasing even as Vegeta shouted, "No, don't risk hitting the dragon!" and I focused on beginning the teleport to carry both him and his weird 'offspring' home.

We shifted.

King Piccolo spat out green blood on to Earth's fertile grassy fields. I glanced down at him. "Are you alright?"

"I'll... survive..." he gritted out, mad, but not at me this time.

* * *

Kami looked up, eyes wide. "I sense him, I sense my counterpart to the East. He's gotten into a fight: I worry he may have already begun his massacres. You must go immediately."

"Yes sir!" said Chiaotzu, who had been sparring with Tien under his experienced eyes. "I'll go grab the rest of the fighters right away!"

"No, I'll get them. Go now. He has the dragon with him!"

The two warrior companions giving each other a worried glance that nonetheless carried agreement, Chiaotzu launched them both into the air telekinetically and flew off at the highest speeds he could muster. He might let Tien do the bulk of the fighting, but that didn't mean he couldn't be a help!

* * *

"They arrived faster than I was expecting..." King Piccolo ground out, visibly and audibly annoyed as we both sensed approaching fighters. "I... acknowledge Pilaf as Emperor of his little planet _only,_" he grumbled out almost impossible to make out.

"What was that?" I said, completely taken back by what I'd just heard, and he growled at me. "Alright, alright, good enough! _Yeesh_, you growl enough people would think you are the dragon here," I complained, and focused my energies and the dragon ball's. It definitely wasn't happy with the extreme loop hole abuse and creative wish interpretation I was doing here as I tried to heal and restore him back, and we both glowed from the leaking excess energies.

"Oh no! We were too late!" I over-heard a voice, but was growing too tired to care. I had really pushed it too far this time. As I stepped back, King Piccolo flexing with a smirk and enjoying his newly refound youth and good health, I could see my littlest claw turning to stone.

King Piccolo raised his hand at me, and I looked at him in innocent confusion. "What are you doing?"

He slowly lowered it after a moment of deliberation. "...nothing."

Him turning to exchange blasts with two familiar fighters was the last thing I saw before I turned to stone.

* * *

_Note: If the character seems a little reckless in bringing Piccolo along with him on his space adventure, keep in mind, still a child right now, and as a dragon he does kind of want to please his 'creator' even when that creator is more than a bit evil._

_Also, Sion's desired wish really reinforces just how much of a dick Vegeta is, isn't he? I mean, it doesn't even occur to him to think about asking to restore his planet, he just goes straight to wanting to go wishing for immortality. Although there's a real lack of creativity in the wish department in this series in general. It's almost all 'move this thing or person(s)', 'grant immortality/youth', 'make me taller', or 'bring back the dead', with the exception of the panties and Bulma wanting a perfect boyfriend._

_My biggest holdout against Beerus is that I actually don't really like the massive power creep of the series, it gets pretty ridiculous. But this is already a fairly ridiculous premise._

_ I couldn't remember if Shenron was able to make planets or just Porunga, but since this isn't canon anyway let's pretend he can make at least small ones, yes?_


	8. Chapter 8 Guldo's Wish

**Tiniest Fluffiest Eternal Dragon**

* * *

I found myself asleep for three years straight rather than one, as a consequence of my bending the rules a little too far, at least according to Kami when I woke at his hideout. It seemed like about three large wishes (someone asking for something small like finding their car keys or getting a bicycle for their birthday truly didn't count much in the energy department) was actually the natural limit of these things, and I'd effectively pushed it a bit beyond that, with granting youth, planet making, changing species (or half-way changing species) and mass teleportation, it was just a step too far. The magic back-lashed on me.

It was extremely unfortunate, because every year I slept was another year that people were getting slaughtered by Frieza. With my powers, I could actually do something about it. But there was also another thing that deeply troubled me.

I had completely missed out on Piccolo Jr. hatching and starting to grow up. Goku had grown a lot too, and now was looking like an actual adult. They were fighting in a tournament with Piccolo threatening to take over the earth if he won, and I felt, frankly, depressed. I had changed nothing. I couldn't help but remember how Piccolo Senior had killed Sion, and I didn't know if he'd ever contemplated killing Shenron in the series since I had never seen those episodes, but if he hadn't, then maybe all I had done so far was _make things worse_.*

Yeah, I wasn't feeling too great about myself now.

After harassing Kami for some lessons in alien languages that I knew I would need later, I tried visiting Piccolo Junior, just to see if I could talk him out of it and if he remembered me.

"Hey. You wouldn't forget your own dragon, would you? Remember me?"

Piccolo looked at me with rather familiar contempt. "I don't need a wish granting dragon to earn my glory. I'll accomplish this on my own, Mushu."

"I will take that as a very unfriendly yes. It's nice to see you too, Piccolo." I lashed my tail with restrained irritation, which was better I suppose than letting it droop in depression at the lack of effect I was having on my giant bipedal pickle person. "I won't forgive you if you get yourself killed."

"Hah. My most tenacious opponent has about as much menace as a small child."

I was curious, considering the rest were part saiyan now, if it was the same one. "Goku, I take it?" Not every saiyan went on to become a super duper saiyan, so simply being one wasn't a guarantee of power or victory, I suppose, thankfully enough for the upcoming conflicts with Vegeta, Nappa, and Raditz. "Maybe I should visit him, where I'll be more appreciated." Passive aggressive, what's that?

"Maybe you should!" he retorted at me. Realizing how potentially idiotic he was being at sending a _wish granter_ to his own enemy, no matter how grumpy he was, he amended, "Don't you dare make him more powerful or immortal, though."

"Don't worry, Goku would never wish for that." I actually half-wished he would, because making him even temporarily immortal, say for his lifespan, might solve a far few problems since every time he got defeated he'd just get one of those zenkai boosts, allowing him to eventually defeat opponents simply out of sheer tenacity if he went on long enough, and then I wouldn't have to waste wishes reviving him repeatedly. But it was so selfish he would never go for it no matter how pragmatic it was.

"Then he'll die at my hand." Piccolo smirked.

Yeah, somehow, I _sincerely_ doubted it. He must have sensed my doubt, because he blasted a defenseless tree as 'practice' and started a vigorous self training session, doing his studious best to ignore my presence.

Well, two could play that game. I flew off without a goodbye. Maybe it was for the best. It would be quite bad if I got him killed on one of my ventures and we both ended up dead for the price of one. Landing on a house nearby once I found him, Goku looked up with delight when he sensed me and my power.

"Oh wow, you woke up! We were worried you might never wake up again, seeing as it's supposed to be every year and you slept as stone well past the first one. It's really lucky nobody died against King Piccolo, since it would've been hard to wish without you." Goku was so much friendlier than Piccolo I found myself wondering why I hadn't just visited the orange loving definitely-not-a-ninja saiyan in the first place. "Unfortunately, he had a son, although I guess you know that since Kami isn't gone. We're going to battle in a tournament, and I'm feeling pretty good about our odds of winning! It's all of us going in versus just one of him, and I'm training really hard!"

Nobody died, huh? Maybe I'd done some good after all, since hadn't Chiaotzu died at some point and that's why they were upset they couldn't revive him with the dragon balls again when he fried himself against Nappa? It might have been accidental good, though, since I'd distracted King Piccolo and injured him through my own negligence right before the big fight started. Still, a win was a win, and I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth unless it started complaining it needed a dentist.

Okay, maybe that metaphor got a little weird, but to be fair, I didn't know for sure there weren't talking horses in this reality.

"That's really nice to hear Goku, and it's good to see a friendly face." A ridiculous idea suddenly popped into my mind, but in some ways it was less risky than taking Piccolo, even if it could potentially really mess with the timeline... Goku wouldn't be going by the name of Kakarott though, maybe it would be safe? A part of me wanted to do this just to make Piccolo jealous, which was an extremely stupid reason to do something. The real question was, could I save any more people this way? Goku didn't seem like the type to do discreet or sneaky to save his life. But there were going to be times where I wasn't going to be able to avoid getting shot at and could use a defensive tank as a wall, or at least someone who was a glutton for punishment. Taking a deep breath, I began, "Goku, to be honest, there's something I feel I should tell you that I've been keeping from you for some time. It concerns where you come from."

"What do you mean?" he looked at me with innocent bafflement.

"You're an alien Goku, a warrior species called a saiyan, once part of a conquering empire that still terrorizes entire planets to this day. You were originally sent to cleanse the earth of its entire population, but bumped your head and forgot your mission. As it happened, your people were also almost completely wiped out by that same empire, which turned on them for fear they were getting too powerful and uppity."

"That's horrible," commented Goku. "I would hope I would never do such a thing, no matter what memories I had. The people of this world are really wonderful, and they make the best food! And you say my entire race was like that?" he protested.

"I wouldn't underestimate the power of propaganda, Goku: these saiyans and yourself would not have known any kindness, so how would they have known to do anything different? I've started working against this empire, but it is hard and dangerous work, and I've been considering the idea that I might need some help sometimes." Seeing him start to open his mouth to agree, I cut him off. "I know it's your habit to just reflexively agree when ever someone is in need of aid, but we actually need to think on this. If someone actually recognized you, it might lead them to come to Earth, and that's the last thing we want. So maybe it would be best if I only called on you in an absolute emergency where I had absolutely no other choice."

Goku seemed to ponder this. "You know, I actually have an idea for this! See, Bulma introduced me to this thing called 'TV', and they had a show about people called 'superheroes' on it!" That... actually could work. "I could wear a mask just like them!"

Goku disappeared with high speed, then reappeared, wearing a dark mask with pointy ears over his face, and said:

"I'm Batman now!"

I groaned. "No. Just no."

"BATMAN!" Goku shouted.

I blinked and he now had a cape he was swishing. _In hideous_ orange.

"Please, no," I begged. "Kami, have mercy."

"Baaatttmaaaaaan."

* * *

In the end, he could not be dissuaded.

'Batman' and Mushu saved another planet that day, and then yet another and another, much to the dragon's deep and eternal embarrassment, and the complete confusion of the aliens who naturally did not get the pop culture reference at all and took, unfortunately, the bright orange caped bat!Goku completely seriously.

"We must kill this Batman for Lord Frieza," said Dodoria, arriving just a touch too late to stop us from our mayhem but in good time to survey the aftermath from above in a large spaceship.

"Indeed," said Zarbon. "This Bat character is quite slippery. Shall we race to see who can pin them down first?"

Captain Ginyu folded his arms. "I'm concerned how they are managing to move from place to place so fast. By all reports, they don't even have a high enough power level to be worth the bother of even one of us normally. It's quite concerning that one individual could somehow be disrupting so many small operations."

"Hmf, that's because it's not one individual," Vegeta said, sulking in a corner.

"You think it's your ridiculous wish granting dragon fairy-tale?" Zarbon said with amusement. "I still can't believe Frieza saddled you with being babysat as punishment for that fiasco when it was obviously some sort of deranged prank or a result of your addled mind when drunk. No dragon is flying around the galaxy granting wishes, especially to piddling, pathetic life forms, and there were plenty of dead bodies to suggest the rescue, if there was one, was hardly as perfect as one would expect for something so miraculous as a _magic wish_."

"Hey, I was _not drunk_, and I know what I saw! That thing's companion killed one of my men! It obviously just went and got itself a new murderous companion, it's the exact same behavior as before, going around and messing with our slaughters and taking all the damn fun out of it." Vegeta folded his arms. "You think I killed my own man? Or have so little pride in my work I'd get drunk on a job?"

"I frankly wouldn't put it past you, monkey," Captain Ginyu mocked.

"Or maybe one of the natives did the killing and it insulted your saiyan pride that one of yours was taken out by something so weak so your mind concocted an elaborate story to support your delusions of grandeur," Dodoria jumped in to the verbal beat down, no one here a real close ally of Vegeta's and more than happy to take down the acceptable target a peg.

When Vegeta raised his fist, Zarbon interrupted, "Ah ah, Prince Vegeta. Frieza specifically said for you to behave, and he'd give you a far worse beating than I ever would, but if you're really feeling that masochistic, I'll give you a beating for free." Vegeta lowered his arm, scowling. "Good monkey. Now, who's babysitting Vegeta? Not it!"

"Not it!" said Captain Ginyu.

"Not it!" said Dodoria.

They turned to all look at the one who had been the most quiet so far, the purple alien Cui, who smirked and said: "Oh, I'll enjoy this, monkey. You'll be polishing my boots this mission, and who knows, just maybe you'll be able to redeem yourself a bit if we catch this mystical dragon of yours. Unlike the rest of you, if Frieza believes it potentially exists, I'm willing to believe it may as well."

"Like hell am I polishing your boots, Cui," Vegeta responded. "And I WILL get that dragon, you'll see."

"Remember, if the dragon exists, Frieza wants that wish for himself! Don't you dare take one, monkey," Cui lectured. "Or do. I would love to kill you, and don't understand why Frieza hasn't given me permission years ago."

"How do we know you won't just try to take one for yourself?" Vegeta retorted.

"How dare you! I am loyal to Lord Frieza!"

"As are we all," Vegeta responded, smirking now as he started to get the verbal upper hand. "Don't impune my loyalty and I won't impune yours, how about that? Now, how about we go on a mission already?" He walked off dismissively.

"Tch!" Cui spat. "Typical Vegeta, always has to have the final word. I can't wait to finally kill him when Frieza realizes how useless he really is."

"Calm yourself and bide your time, Cui," Zarbon said. "You'll likely get your chance. I don't buy for one minute his excuse he was worried the dragon was going to take off at any moment and that he only wished to wish for something for our master Frieza with his own wish. But do us all a favor. No matter how powerful you think you are compared to him, don't let him get within ten feet of that damn dragon."

"I thought you said you didn't believe it exists," Cui protested.

"That was to rile Vegeta," Zarbon said with a sly smile. "I'm not just beautiful, I have brains and brawn too, you know. The perfect package."

"Now don't you be getting an ego as big as Vegeta's, Zarbon," Dodoria chided. "I'm going to get that dragon first!"

"So we're all leaning toward the notion it really does exist?" Captain Ginyu questioned. "This could be fun."

It was not fun.

The dragon led them in circles and across a dozen planets chasing rumors and flashing glimpses, stories of children getting lolipops, the blind regaining sight, and old men miraculously finding their spaceship keys with the shadow of a dragon moving fast behind them. In short, tedious, unrewarding work. But the real cherry on top was one of their own accidentally taking a wish.

The newly conquered Bas had offered up a prime member of its species, but Guldo's strange body shape had made fitting into the standard equipment quite troublesome. "Ugh! I wish I had a scouter that fit me!" He readied to toss away yet another mis-sized scouter, when a sound made him stop.

"Oh, you do, do you?" a strange, youthful voice teased, and Guldo whipped around fast to see... nothing. Was he hallucinating?

"Yes, I do... hello?" Guldo said uncertainly.

"I happened to be in this sector looking to grant a wish, and you were the first I came upon. Congratulations, your wish has been granted!"

Guldo, both frightened and overjoyed, turned around to see a great green dragon - slightly bigger and more serpentine than I was years before, but still recognizably young - and a floating scouter perfectly sized to fit Guldo's strange bulbous head. "Amazing!" he gasped out. "But wait, you're the wish granting dragon? Oh no, Frieza will be _furious_ I took a wish! Hold still!" He puffed out his face and held his breath, raced to a nearby storage room to grab some chain, and wrapped it around the dragon, before letting out a puff and panting for breath. "Haha! I got you?"

I looked down at the bonds contemptuously, and spoke without moving my mouth, red eyes narrowed and fangs on full display. **[[Do you really think I need to move to use my powers, mortal? Is this how you repay my granting your wish?]]**

Guldo flinched as I roared, shattering numerous objects around the room both plastic and glass, and warping metal. Then I vanished.

"No!" Guldo howled, racing forward to the scouter on the floor. It was ruined. The scouter that was still in his hand, however, was not, and it had caught everything.

"We heard everything. Report to the main room immediately to give your report."

Guldo gulped, and headed over, carefully tucking the broken scouter into his arms and hoping that perhaps it would be salvageable after all if he gave it to one of the scientists, and wondering if perhaps Frieza would want to inspect the object. "My lord!" he bowed deep and low, almost sweeping the ground with his head. He'd lick boots if he thought it would save his life. His new captain, Ginyu, he was happy to note had rushed in as well, although it might end up being only to see his new underling kiss the world goodbye as if Frieza was pissed enough there was little one could do.

"Does your undamaged scouter model record any visual data?" Frieza asked. "Hand it over to Kikono, my head scientist."

"I think it does a limited amount, Lord Frieza," Guldo bowed again, still not completely used to the formalities of the PTO and really not wanting to die. He might not know exactly how powerful the lord was, much of what knowledge was available about him being shrouded in rumor, but he knew it was enough that freezing time and running as fast as he could wouldn't save him from the tyrant at all, even if currently he looked quite lazy in his hover-chair.

They rewatched the event again, well, watched it for the first time for those just arriving, including a very unusually pensive looking Vegeta.

"Hm? Something on your mind, Vegeta?" Frieza asked, tail curling and eyes lidding in a manner that promised malice if not amused by the answer.

"The dragon looks larger and more mature than last time I encountered it, my Lord. I think it grew." He paused, as if debating the wisdom of speaking further when this answer seemed to already satisfy Frieza enough to avoid punishment. "I also wonder if it is taunting us."

"Taunting us?" Guldo asked, confused.

"It appeared here, and out of all the people it could have granted a wish to, it chose _Guldo_?" Vegeta said, deliberately speaking as if Guldo wasn't even there. "That weakling, and with such a pathetic wish?"

"Hey! I can hold my own in a fight, I'll take you on Vegeta if I have to!" Guldo blustered, really not wanting to actually take on Vegeta and hoping the conversation would move on from this and the threat be forgotten.

"As undiplomatic as our Prince Vegeta is," Frieza said with light chiding that was deceptively polite, "he does have a slight point. The dragon didn't even give you a chance to make a proper wish, appearing behind you... as if it had been spying on us. Has it had the power to do this all along, might it be doing so even now, or does it have yet more allies, possibly even in this very room?"

Everyone there grew considerably uneasy as they understood the implications. Some of the slower ones only grasped it as they saw others trembling.

Without further warning, Lord Frieza blasted at a random mook who had no crime except that they had been diligently typing every word down for posterity, incinerating them to ash. "Let that death be a warning to all of you: Lord Frieza does not tolerate traitors!"

Captain Ginyu cleared his throat, bravely volunteering to try and change the subject, perhaps out of fear of his own man being next. "Well said, my Lord Frieza, but there is one piece of good news out of this that Guldo has brought you. If the dragon is young, perhaps..." he trailed off, hoping to bait Frieza or another into continuing the sentence.

"Perhaps it can be trained," Lord Frieza said, fickle good mood returning just like that.

* * *

"I went with Goku on an adventure in space, Piccolo. Are you jelly?" I appeared to once again harass the poor Namekian.

"That's _not_ how you use the word jelly," he complained. "And no, I am not jealous!"

"That's too bad, because I'm peanut butter!" I exclaimed. "Well, I guess I'll just go hang out with GOKU some more! I'm definitely not jelly of the inanimate random objects you are fruitlessly trying to spar with either but can't because they can't move!" That statement made more sense in my head.

"You do that!" he shouted.

"Fine!" I shouted back, and then vanished.

Privately, Piccolo mentally commented to himself: _Maybe I am a little jelly. _And immediately grimaced to himself on the butchering of Earthling language.

_But only because outer space is sure to have good opponents, not because I actually want to see that obnoxious green reptile's snout again. He talks so moronically, it's easy to forget he can actually be quite clever, _the last part he thought a little more uneasily. The dragon was probably being too transparent to be planning anything, but one never knew with someone capable of hiding their true nature. His mind was a little less clouded than King Piccolo's, and he had to admit the over-excitable flying lizard had a point: making all crime legal did not make a great deal of sense, even from a pure malice standpoint. And it took guts and planning to fight against an empire light years away from you immensely more powerful that, Piccolo had to admit, could possibly wipe the entire Earth out in an instant if it wanted.

The part of Piccolo that had a keen sense of self preservation wondered if he should not perhaps try commanding the dragon to stay home and do something more sensible, like get Goku to wish for bananas. He was under the impression even if he was obeyed, however, the dragon would just keep looking for loopholes, and he'd rather save that desire to please him for something immediate and important rather than just teach the overgrown lizard to look to disobey him for something that wasn't immediately a threat and with luck would never be. Like demanding a wish, perhaps, that would be a good use and would give less time to think of loopholes than a standing order. Being youthful and strong, he didn't have anything in particular he really wanted to wish for though.

_I could kill Mushu, _he mused. Some problems could be solved that way. But Mushu had been loyal in their own strange way, and his 'father' had come to realize would not actually do anything to try to kill or stop him, as they'd been nothing but helpful there willingly, and thus there was no strong reason to kill them and even perhaps logical sense in sparing them if the dragon was motivated to act on his behalf. It made the dragon's association with Goku seem a little bit stranger, in fact, since it was clear the green dragon's morals were a little loose if they actually had them at all, though they did seem to prefer people being happy and unharmed as evidenced to their rescuing-planets-project they had also not been terribly emotionally affected by the dead and dying on said planets either. 'Neutral' seemed a good word to describe them, if he had to choose. Maybe, he thought with a sneer, 'neutral good'.

Well, Piccolo didn't need anyone. But he also didn't back down from a good challenge. Maybe when he thrashed Goku, Mushu would admit he was a terrible choice to bring along and would beg for Piccolo back.

* * *

The competition went much as it did in canon, with Goku scraping out a win and Piccolo losing but keeping his life. Piccolo swore to get stronger and to take revenge for this defeat.

Emperor Pilaf was doing okay, if a little flustered and completely overwhelmed by the actual responsibilities that came with ruling efficiently. It was a wonderful case of 'be careful what you wish for', because when I went to check up on him he looked half tempted to wish it all back. Half of the new planet had also been taken over by the Shikk's Child Emperor, who, and this I hadn't known until Shu told me the story, apparently had their** life saved by Pilaf, so they had agreed to help out Pilaf once in awhile and respect them as the Emperor of New Earth even as they demanded they retain control of their own people. They'd been instrumental in keeping the peace on the new planet, as some of the newcomers were rowdier than others.

Shu and Mai were less reserved than Pilaf. "Can we go back to Earth? PLEASE?" they begged.

"Yeah, okay. I'll ferry you back and forth whenever you start to miss old Pilaf." It was hard to imagine doing that, but the old blue pipsqueak was mildly amusing and it had been fun to check on how he was doing.

I had to force myself to take a rest from my trying-to-save-planetary-populations schemes, due to energy limitations even when I was trying to keep it limited to teleports, and the whole not really keen on turning to stone for a whole year thing, but things seemed to be doing okay. The ravaged populations were starting to make the tiny planet I made a bit full, but they were also starting to build spaceships to take off to try and find their own new planets, so that situation was okay for now. Still, at some point, we'd need to actually reclaim planets or I'd have to make a new one yet again soon, and I really wasn't looking forward to turning to stone again, but these years between Gohan being born and becoming a toddler were the safest ones to do big planet-making projects like this as no big threats should be coming up until that time, so I was just going to have to grit my teeth and do it. I was also tempted to take a year to just try to train and raise my power levels, though... and for that, I really did kind of want Piccolo's company.

"Hey," I greeted softly, trying to be less irritating than... well, a full blown excited puppy could be.

"Oh, did you come to mock me for my loss? Congratulate me on my failure to attain victory?" Piccolo raged.

"No, never!" I exclaimed. "I just wanted to know... do you need a partner to spare with?"

Piccolo went still. "You know I won't be gentle."

"I know. And I am not a great fighter. But I still want to do this with you," I said slowly, wondering if I should even try to explain. I didn't even entirely know myself why I wanted to do this with him rather than someone more friendly. Familiarity, maybe? The simple puppish desire to be friends with everyone? But I could say why I needed to train, at least.

As it turned out, it wasn't needed. Piccolo turned and properly looked me in my red eyes for the first time since he had hatched, and said, "Get ready to dodge."

* * *

_*Mushu the character does not know that, of course, King Piccolo actually murders Shenron, so the dragon did in fact make things better... marginally._

_Mushu doesn't have an extremely strong sense of gender and isn't clear on if the dragons are even capable of sexual reproduction like that, which I intended to reveal at some point when it was mildly more plot-relevant, which is why I often slip and call them 'them', which is a perfectly good neutral pronoun. Japanese doesn't have pronouns the same way English does, so the pronouns used aren't too important anyway. Although I do have Vegeta and Frieza call the dragon an 'it' to showcase their lack of respect for Mushu as anything but a tool._

_**case in point, I don't know what gender the Shirt's child emperor even is, I assume male tho', and it's not really super-plot relevant so using a neutral pronoun works great here._


	9. Chapter 9 A Planetary Size Wish Thwarted

**Tiniest Fluffiest Eternal Dragon**

* * *

_The next planet has a pretty higher power leveled guy... actually, they've switched to always making sure at least one high powered mook is on planet in these conquering sprees, they've realized the low powered ones never manage it but I often avoid the higher power levels. _I thought with annoyance before teleporting back to Earth for another sparring session with Piccolo. _Smart, but annoying. Still, could try risking it on the lower end, and if Goku dies I can just bring him back - wait..._

Ah fork. I'd forgotten, there was some stupid rule about bringing a person back only once with the Earth dragon balls, wasn't there? I couldn't just frivolously throw Goku's life away then simply because I could bring him back, that needed to be kept in reserve for absolute emergencies.

Guess I wasn't going to cheat on this year of training and genuinely stick to just Earth for the most part, then. That sucked. The time might make them take the heat off a bit, however.

I actually genuinely would have enjoyed giving Guldo a scouter that fit him, even if he was 'evil', I did actually rather like granting wishes for the sake of granting wishes. I wasn't really motivated by fighting and destroying things the way most people in the DBZ universe were, and the task of creating a slightly differently shaped scouter had interested me a great deal. Since it would have been a waste to actually use the dragon ball's magic on such a thing and 'brute force' create such a thing, I instead used my own personal pool of energies and my knowledge of science, plus some help from Bulma, who was more than happy to take apart scouters and get to pour over alien technology with all me asking in return was a sketch-up of a simple modification. I was 90% sure on my own that the part of the scouter that needed to be modified didn't even have anything important in it beyond wiring and that simply modifying the shape of the frame would do the trick, but it was nice to have someone with hands to look it over and make sure.

In short, despite how it looked (I had tried to make it seem completely spontaneous, though I am not sure I actually completely fooled them considering the exactness of my timing implied I had to be spying if I could not outright sense people wanting wishes), I'd actually spent quite a bit of time and effort on that stupid little wish, as I had many others that I classed as 'unofficial wishes' because I avoided tugging on the dragon ball's energies if at all possible. The results had been pretty predictable, but I was still kind of angry at how Guldo had tried to tie me down. Seriously, I could teleport, did he really think any kind of hold was actually going to work on me?

Another kind of unofficial wish I'd spent a lot of effort on was simple healing of random people across the galaxy in need. In hindsight, it was pretty weird a series so fixated on fighting never had anyone except Dende who was specialized in healing, and we didn't even have Dende on our side yet. As I trained with Piccolo this year, I also trained my mind heavily, pouring over medical texts. My natural abilities as a dragon giving me pin-point detection and fine-grain energy manipulation meant that even without much energy, I was heavily advantaged when it came to manipulating delicate parts of the body back into place. Hell, I actually had a few ideas about how to indirectly kill a few more troublesome opponents if they pissed me off - if I could find that heart-breaker virus that was destined to reach Goku, I would only have to scratch them to infect them with it, hypothetically.

I might not be into fighting, but if I did, I would fight _mean and underhanded_. You did not want to piss off the wish granting dragon who could manifest just about any object or teleport, even if that dragon couldn't directly kill or teleport you due to your higher energies, they could easily fuck up your spaceship and _kaboom, _dead soldiers of your army everywhere in the cold vacuum of space, or, if you were on planet, they could simply teleport the planet you were on somewhere else and leave you stranded in space. Or, like I mentioned before, they could flood the air around you with terrible diseases or transmit it into your blood with a single bite.

That I had so far mostly refrained from destroying anyone (except indirectly from my allies doing the deed) was not a measure of inability, but of my neutrality. I preferred people alive, certainly; dead people generally can't enjoy making and getting granted wishes. But this wasn't out of some great noble sense of good or evil. I just liked having people alive, and didn't quite fully get people who didn't. Wouldn't the universe get _awfully dull_ with only a few people in it?

"Mushu! I have great news! Oh, hey Piccolo, how's it going? I hope you aren't still on about that conquering the world thing, but if you're hanging out with Mushu I guess you can't be completely bad. Or, does that mean Mushu is a little bit evil instead?"

Piccolo scowled as Goku approached, interrupting our session of me mostly dodging, occasionally mock-biting and grappling with my claws, since I was disinterested in actually hurting the Namekian, although Piccolo seemed oddly displeased by this for reasons I didn't really comprehend. I guess I just didn't have the right fighter's spirit or enough masochism.

"What is it, Goku?" I asked, hoping this wasn't going to turn into a real fight with how pissy Piccolo was looking.

"I'm going to be a father!"

Oh, wow. Was it time for that already? Well, they did get married very young, and I suppose one wouldn't expect Chi-Chi to wait, so in the end I guess this wasn't very surprising. "Congratulations, Goku." I looked at Piccolo. "Be polite."

"...congratulations, I feel sorry for the child being stuck with you for a father," Piccolo said, starting to be polite but, it seemed the act was simply too much for him and he spun it off into an insult not a second later. Eh. Baby steps?

"Hey, if you guys are training, can I join you?" Goku should not be capable of making such puppy eyes at his fully adult age, but somehow, he was doing it. It was mildly disturbing to me, and extremely so to Piccolo.

"I dunno," I said, trying to let him down more gently than Piccolo would who I knew definitely wouldn't be pinky keen on it. "I don't think Piccolo wants you learning his techniques until he's ready to show them off, and you should probably be focused on being a dad right now?"

Piccolo might not like Goku, but he also enjoyed being contrary to me, just to fluster me. "Actually, while it is true I don't want Goku around long enough to see my techniques in action, I think a single session would do you some good. Maybe Goku can talk some sense into you where I haven't and correct your fighting style."

"What's the problem?" Goku asked.

"This!" Piccolo moved so fast he seemed to almost vanish, kicking at me, and I simply dodged. "Mushu doesn't _have_ a fighting style! They do nothing but dodge! It's really annoying!"

"Hey, it works for me," I huffed. "You don't want to see me when I get really mad, anyway."

"I gotta agree with Piccolo here." Goku folded his arms and looked stern. Seriously? He was going take Piccolo's side over mine? Piccolo wanted to kill him! "You can't just dodge all the time. If nothing else, is it really fair to Piccolo if you agree to spar with him and then all you do is run away all the time? That's not a fight."

"I guess I hadn't thought of it like that," I said with surprise, this whole 'fighting ethic' thing not really being instinctive to me it hadn't occurred to me I might actually be offending him by doing this. And Piccolo was oh so easy to offend, it was best not to if you could avoid it. "I thought for sure you were going to lecture me about what if I needed to fight for real? In which case I thought I'd answer that I'd just toss a baby sun at them or something. Well, okay, that's a bit too big, maybe a neutron star, they're very dense and compact so you might be able to find one smaller than the Earth without too much trouble."

Goku looked a little taken back by that and Piccolo looked astonished. "Yeah, I wasn't going to argue you that point because I thought you would have something up your sleeve if you really needed it, but, wow, remind me to never make you mad? Although I hope you have something that would be a little less destructive to the planet." Try 'completely destructive to the planet', but point taken. "It might be good to do this just to have a backup. Or something less... lethal, if all your tricks are like that. I guess it's nice to know we have such a powerful fighter if we really need it though."

"We may eventually meet opponents to whom that would be survivable," I warned. "Don't forget Earth is very small fry to the Universe as a whole at the moment. I might technically be the most powerful of the group simply from sheer creativity, but if you keep training you both should be able to out-scale me, I think. Well, technically I scale with Piccolo since I can draw on his energy, but that's just for wishes I think." Didn't Cooler survive being scorched by a sun? And future Goku killed him. So there was no guarantee even at my most creative that I could even kill Frieza right now. I doubted Earth diseases would do shit to the alien immune systems of Arcosians / Frost Demons, and stranding him in space would just be an inconvenience to him. "You also don't have the handicap of turning to stone for a year if you use your most powerful technique." That, by far, was my biggest issue. "So I'm fully expecting you both to be our biggest defenders, and I'm more useful on the sidelines ready to revive the dead. Though do try not to die more than once if you can help it, please?"

"Hold on," Piccolo said, holding out his hand with palm showing in a 'stop' gesture. "What's this about me being a defender? I don't even like Goku. I would laugh and spit on your corpse," he directed the last sentence at Goku, "if you died right now. Mushu I merely tolerate for potential usefulness. Everyone else could just die for all I care."

Goku winced. "That's a bit harsh for somebody who is willing to fight on your side to protect the Earth, don't you think? Although I admit I'm not exactly fully trusting of you either, Piccolo, there are some really nasty people out there, and if it means saving the Earth I'd work with just about anyone. I do respect your strength as a fighter, and I know you'd make a really good defender!" He outstretched his hand. "What do you say? Bygones be bygones?"

"Tch," Piccolo turned away, and flew off, leaving us in the dust.

"I'm sorry. He's not quite ready yet for this sort of thing," I apologized on Piccolo's behalf, since one of us had to do it. "His father King Piccolo did a real whammy on his mind, but he's _not_ him. You understand?"

"I don't know that I do," said Goku slowly, confused. "But he's got to defend the Earth if he's at risk of being destroyed with us all or if he wants to rule it, doesn't he? So I know he must be mostly talk right now."

"Piccolo is more bark than bite," I agreed. "But don't let him know I said that, he can still bite pretty hard." Mind, I couldn't feel his energy right now, he was clearly suppressing it, so it was entirely possible he was eaves-dropping on us right now.

"Piccolo bites?" Goku asked with interest.

"Uh... never-mind," I said, embarrassed. "It's just a saying. I guess growing up in the woods you wouldn't have heard it much if ever." I had to remind myself ignorance was not always the same as stupidity.

"But _would_ he bite if provoked?" Goku asked, one track mind focused on fighting.

"Uh," I said less than gracefully,honestly not sure how to answer that. "Maybe if he absolutely had to? I know I'd bite, but I've got sharp teeth." Speaking of, did Namekians even have teeth? I hadn't exactly paid attention, but could have sworn I'd seen rather omnivorous looking ones; that seemed strange for a species that didn't eat. Dentition reflected food habits, the only other purpose was defensive, so you'd expect a solo pair of sharp tusks or the like if that was the case, and he pretty clearly didn't have those. Did Namekians have a more omnivorous evolutionary past before becoming green, perhaps gaining symbiosis with some photosynthetic organism? Or, since even plants needed to absorb nutrients that they didn't just get from water and air sometimes, did they actually eat on very rare occasions, perhaps when producing a large number of eggs? That would make some sense.

Ignorance aside, Goku could still come off as kind of dim sometimes.

* * *

I was happy to greet Gohan shortly after his birth, but babies too young to crawl aren't exceptionally interesting, and his birth meant the clock was definitely ticking. This year would be safe, from my knowledge of the time line, but once he could walk all bets were off.

Alright, it was time, I decided, to waste a year as stone and grant a wish to create another planet to make up for some of the destroyed ones. But who to get to grant that wish?

I had spent a bit of time stalking Vegeta actually, but he simply wasn't the type to mutter something like 'I wish Planet Vegeta was still around!' so that was a lost cause, no matter how funny it would be to see his expression it just wasn't happening. As a bonus, the location would actually be pretty perfect to 'hide' a planet by because everyone knew it was destroyed, just an orbiting mass of rubble, so no one would be looking there for any reason! But if I went to Prince Vegeta, he would certainly just ask for immortality no matter how I nudged him.

Maybe another time I'd harass him when he was a little more on side good, or at least side 'not totally evil'. No, right now, I was better off just asking some ally to make the wish for me.

I did. It wasn't too hard, I had many thankful people who praised my name or wanted their own planet. So I set about re-making Planet Vegeta, because hey, why not? Perfect location and all.

Only to suddenly have a flash of purple go by and destroy it with a single blast before disappearing again! "_Motherfucker!" _I swore, completely forgetting the manners Kami had tried to instill into me. The vacuum of space swallowed up the sound, which might have been for the best, considering if that being was so powerful I likely didn't want them to actually hear me.

What the hell was that? Why did they interfere with my planet remaking business? This sucked! And who would have had the capacity to sense the destruction had been undone, to ensure it stayed that way?

I sensed something menacing and massive in energy turning its attention toward me, and got the fuck out of dodge, teleporting.

The foreign energy started to build up at my new location not a second later, and I teleported again, quick enough to once again just catch sight of an omnious purple blur and nothing more.

Whatever it was, it followed repeatedly, and we danced across what had to be the whole galaxy. I eventually managed to throw them, or perhaps they simply got bored, by throwing myself straight into the afterlife and hiding in Hell for awhile, energy dampened down as low as I could manage. Nobody, I guessed, really likes spending much time in any form of hell, and the malice there swamped over everything, including, I hoped, myself.

There weren't a lot of things that scared me, but this?

This thing terrified me.

It took a lot time before I got the courage to teleport home, and I didn't go straight there, choosing instead to hide on a heavily populated Planetary Trade Organization station, hoping if it suddenly reappeared maybe it and Frieza would get into a fight and forget about me. Was hiding in a space closet shivering completely undignified for a great and mighty Eternal Dragon? You bet. Did I care? Fork no.

I found myself deeply wishing that I had more power. That nothing could threaten me. Hell, I had gotten cocky: I had thought with my teleporting that nothing _could_ do so, except through Piccolo. But that clearly wasn't the case.

Unable to put it off any longer, I went home (well, to my solar system, anyway) and went into a stone slumber on Mars, for once slightly glad to: in this form I was probably even less likely to be sensed, if I even came off as the same thing at all after the transformation. Rocks aren't exactly rare in the universe, and one would, if they managed to find one, even a funny shaped one, probably conclude they'd lost the energy trail and just take off. Or so I hoped.

* * *

Lord Frieza was extremely surprised and dismayed at the sudden appearance of a purple cat-like being and more angelic companion in his throne-room, delivering an ominous message: "Frieza, when I order a planet destroyed, I expect it to STAY destroyed. I don't know if you had anything to do with this, but if you did, this is your last warning not to reign on our deal again. I barely tolerate your existence as it is."

"I swear I know nothing of this! What planet?" The dragon, Frieza realized. It had to be that pesky dragon!

"It doesn't matter, I've smashed it to pieces now. I'm going to take a nap."

Then the duo vanished as quickly as they came.

Frieza seethed. He _hated_ being given orders, and he _hated_ being weaker than anyone else. If his father hadn't made it explicitly clear he was never to mess with Lord Beerus, he'd have attacked the being on the spot, so called god of destruction or not. When Beerus had made it clear he was going to have Planet Vegeta destroyed that fateful day years ago, whether Frieza wanted to keep it or not, Frieza had barely managed to keep his dignity by destroying it himself. It gave him some satisfaction to rob Beerus of the opportunity, but the lazy cat hadn't really cared, seeing it just as good to have Frieza destroy some planets on his behalf as to do it himself. That was their deal, in fact. Frieza destroyed any planet Beerus told him to... even if it was one that Frieza wanted to keep for his own.

Was this a fair deal? No, not at all. The only thing he got out of it was his life. If the opportunity ever came to leave it, the despot would take it in a second. The Emperor of the Universe should answer to no one, in his opinion. A cunning idea fermented and boiled in his horned skull as how to accomplish this.

If the dragon had caused this latest trouble, perhaps the dragon could get him out as well?

* * *

Author's note: So, there's the appearance, possibly one-off, of Lord Beerus. I'm not super-familiar with Dragon Ball Super to be honest beyond a couple of episodes I've watched, and to my understanding Beerus isn't portrayed as particularly evil there, but I'm not one to sniff my nose up at setting up a powerful enemy or a reminder that bigger fish exist out there. I figure if you're a destroyer, you like to destroy things (or have your minions do so) and have them STAY destroyed, and that puts him at odds with Mushu pretty strongly. I put some thought into it and decided this was the most useful thing I could do with the character, even if I end up using literately nothing else from dbs.

And oddly enough that gives Mushu something in common with Frieza/Freeza.


	10. Chapter 10 Immortality and loopholes

**Tiniest Fluffiest Eternal Dragon:**

** Loopholes, Immortality and Terraforming  
**

* * *

That incident of being chased by some nefarious purple teleporter monster had been terrifying, and I threw myself into thinking about other things, and a touch of playing with Gohan (puppies, babies, they went together pretty darn well) until I calmed down. I tried to mentally compile a list of rules for the dragon ball I'd absorbed inside of me, for instance.

Dragon Ball Rules:

1\. One wish per year, near-immediate transformation into stone preventing further wishes.

2\. No repeats of the same wish.

3\. No bringing multiple people back if they died a long time ago. One person is easier to bring back from a long time ago. Multiple people who recently died can be revived though, even a whole planet full.

4\. No bringing back those who died of natural causes.

5\. Originally, had to grant whatever the wish-asker asked, now, it was just limited to only being able to grant wishes asked by other people.

What was more interesting and unfamiliar were some unstated effective rules and loopholes:

1\. While it was _supposed_ to be one wish per year and immediate stonification (petrification?) with only a pause to find somewhere safe to sleep, there was nothing stopping you from having the wish be 'in progress'.

2\. Possible loophole: Do tiny variations really count as the same wish?

3\. Natural causes is a rather vague category. Technically, nobody actually dies of 'old age', it's generally something specific like heart disease, which even the young can suffer from, being old just makes it more likely. Of course, reviving someone like this they'll probably die again shortly... So not too much of a loophole, unfortunately.

4._ Definite_ loophole: Less than careful phrasing can get you a different wish than what you asked for, depending on the wish granter's whimsy. For a particular, rather excellent example: Immortality doesn't mean invincible.

5\. There was no rule against bugging people to make wishes that conveniently matched with what you wanted to do in the first place...

It was number 4 I was thinking about heavily right now, although technically, this fell under 5 too, as I definitely wanted this to happen for rather selfish reasons, although it was also out of concern for the person in question who I knew was going to die eventually if nothing was done about it. And I definitely wanted to shore up any weak points if that evil purple menace came back...

"No." Piccolo said with a grunt, punching a bunch of rocks into rubble in the desert. I wondered if the bastard had cared I'd disappeared for a year _at all_. Or maybe this was his way of showing petty rage at me for doing so without telling him first.

"Please? It won't make fights less interesting, I promise! All I will do is keep you from dying, unless you decide you actually want to die; this is in both of our interests. So, near-total immortality. And you won't grow weak with old age, which surely isn't something you _want_ to do, right?"

Piccolo paused. "Actually, I should have eternal youth inherited from King Piccolo, provided you didn't botch that up."

"Ah, right," I blink. That was inheritable? Oh, you know what, I guess it should be, since immortal hydra existed, the closest animal equivalent of eternal youth, and I had done something similar to him, changing him slightly on a genetic level to ensure the 'eternal' part; much simpler for my sometimes-lazy self than just periodically checking on him and reverting any aging. "But getting the chance to get back at an opponent who beats you in a fight is pretty desirable, no?"

He seemed to be actually contemplating it. "But if I win a fight only because I asked for effectively infinite health and can keep getting up to fight as long as things haven't gotten as severe as actually removing all of my limbs, that's kind of cheating, isn't it? Even if it isn't quite the same as total invincibility. So it would indeed make fights less interesting, because if we're close enough in level, I'm basically guaranteed to win. I don't want to win in such a cheap way, I want to win under my own strength."

I groaned. "Why do you have to be so noble?" Seriously, that should be Goku's shtick. Also, this was all going out in the trash the moment they started reviving people from the dead. I'd have to taunt him relentlessly about that later, provided I was still alive then.

"It's not about nobility. If it was, I'd probably choose immortality because it's a more pragmatic option. I fully recognize it would be helpful in being a defender of Earth. But I'm not about to devote an eternity to that. I'm selfish, Mushu," Piccolo stated bluntly. "That kind of selflessness is Kami's sort of deal, not mine, and he'd probably find some excuse about it being selfish to want to live that long, which is why he hasn't wished for youth."

"You're just making me wish again that you two would merge already," I grumbled.

"What if we ended up with each other's worst qualities?" Piccolo pointed out in serious tones, although I was pretty sure he was teasing me. "That could happen." An old Piccolo-Kami who was selfish and constantly nagged at you to be selfless didn't seem plausible, but was a nightmarish thought nonetheless.

"A dragon can dream," I muttered, floating in the air. "Alright, I'm going off to visit Gohan and see how he's growing." I was too miffed at Piccolo to stick around him at the moment and needed to cool off. A toddler could be fun.

_Unbeknownst to me, I perhaps should have stuck around just a little longer, as attackers neared Piccolo's location..._

* * *

At the quaint little house I'd been getting used to the sight and scent of, Gohan was finally up and crawling around and occasionally walking, meaning we were getting closer to the official Z timeline. I'd wasted a wish, but should have wiggle room for one more at least, probably two - Gohan needed to learn to talk and read, after all, before the series started. That is, if I remembered it correctly, which wasn't a given. I knew I had a lot of gaps in my knowledge, but I was pretty sure it started with the Saiyan arc, right? Goku's evil annoying brother was going to come over. I wondered if having more saiyans on Earth could help prevent him from dying, maybe by intimidating him into not starting a fight? Wait, these were saiyans I was talking about, of course he was going to fight.

I also wanted to think about my future plans for the galaxy itself again. Making a planet hadn't worked the way I'd hoped. I would have felt a lot more secure if I'd been able to get some kind of immortality agreement with Piccolo, since Kami can remake me if I get destroyed, hopefully? I don't want to accidentally screw up the timeline irrevocably by getting myself and him perma-killed in one of my experiments. But I also didn't want to just sit by while the galaxy was suffering and I could do something about it. I wasn't the best person, I knew that, but I wasn't someone who really tolerated torture or the suffering of an entire species either!

So I was using my normal, non-wish powers of teleportation a heck of a lot to transport species on the verge of extinction. It didn't always feel like it was enough, especially as my refuges were getting over-crowded, but it would have to be. The over-crowding problem was helped a bit after some terra-formable or already habitable but not inhabited by sapients worlds were identified that I could go to by some of the scientists I'd brought over.

That actually gave me a new idea that was probably a bit smarter than just making new planets: terra-forming existing ones. The question is, how to do this in a way that used as little energy as possible?

Talking with the scientists it turned out that this should be possible for some worlds with teleportation alone of materials like atmospheric gases, greenhouse gases for warming, and comets full of water. Teleported above the sky at speeds too low for orbit would be sufficient to send them plummeting down and warming up the planet in question a tiny bit.

The problem was that doing this as individual teleportations would involve so many it was incredibly exhaustive - group teleportations were much more efficient, although it helped there was less material ultimately than the alternative option. It would basically amount to something like moving a small moon instead of a planet, which was indeed better energy-wise, but still not great. I'd still ultimately end up drawing on more energy than I liked and potentially trigger stonification of myself. That, or I'd be stuck drawing it out over time while I rested, which wasn't optimal either as something like that could take years 'going slow'.

In discussions that finally led to solution number two: Not doing all the work myself!

Space-faring species could tote rocks themselves, and with teleportation a lot of the effort of space travel, particularly fuel to get out of the atmosphere and local gravity well, was cut down on immensely. If I could teleport some ships out to the designated system, then they could carry on the rest of the work terra-forming a system and building more ships. It just took a lot longer.

I also asked around: "Does anyone know what a mysterious purple world destroying being might be? Who doesn't need a spaceship to travel around, by the way."

One elder of a blue koala-like species spoke up. "It could be Beerus, a feline-like being who calls himself a Destroyer God." That didn't sound good. "He came to my original planet and when our cooking displeased him, destroyed it. I was out in orbit at the time with a few survivors, and we colonized a new world only to be taken over by Frieza... truly, our luck has been terrible." Cooking? Was he serious?

"I feel sorrow for your loss," I said politely, while inwardly wondering how the hell I was going to get revenge on a _god_. Then again Kami was called God and he wasn't that tough. Maybe I just needed to bide my time and let my allies grow in strength, and things would naturally come to blows.

"Don't. Without you, we would be dead right now, young dragon pup," the elder said. "But I think you are missing something."

"What's that?"

"You've been focusing on rescuing worlds that are under attack, but what about helping worlds that have already been conquered and enslaved, ferrying people out?"

I thought it over. "I initially dismissed that as much too risky, because there are bound to be loyalists there, but if I had a large enough defending force with me... we probably could. Heck, we could probably even temporarily liberate the planet, but due to low power levels it would just be conquered again, so that would be fruitless."

The elder alien nodded. "It is unfortunate you do not have more power, but we can't begrudge you that."

More power... I immediately thought of the Namekian dragon balls. That was probably asking for trouble. Who knew what angry Namekians could do to me, if they could bind a dragon to their will? What would Porunga do to me if he had any inclination or ability to refuse my wish and I asked him for some of his power, possibly sounding like a big thief? So I wouldn't steal the other, original dragon balls outright, but if an opportunity came up in the future to make a wish on them, I wouldn't sniff at it. I wanted to get more powerful. I knew they regenerated their wishes faster and let you make more of them, and didn't have the same limit on how long ago the person died. They did have the weird limit of only one person though, but that seemed self-enforced by the Namekians as they changed it later. Or maybe Kami had innovated with his and taught the innovation to them, that was plausible and made the guy seem pretty clever.

Was that selfish, to wish for yet more power? Pretty much everyone was getting more power in this series and strove for it, so it couldn't be more so than anyone else. I just wanted it on my own terms, to create instead of beat down, and there was only so much 'training' could do to improve this. Was that really so terrible or unthinkable?

But maybe it was, because I found myself thinking that I wanted to effectively become a god. To grant any wish I wanted without limitation, to live as long as I wanted, and to not have anyone force me to do anything I didn't want to do, to create and restructure entire worlds at my whim. And since another god could probably stop me, I didn't want to be a minor god either. The sheer responsibility of being head god made me balk at it, but whoever was responsible clearly wasn't doing a very good job, so why not me instead, right?

What exactly would I have to do to obtain such a dream? Was it even possible?

My intuition said that if there were gods here, and hadn't smote me yet for thinking blasphemy, then the answer was 'yes'. I just needed to figure out the 'how'. Hopefully it didn't involve some really long and stupid training montage, but knowing this universe, it probably did.

Distracted about this, I definitely wasn't expecting to come back to a very upset Chi-Chi proclaiming that Gohan was gone.

* * *

Why did so many evil villains have castles? Was there a Villain-R-Us sale handing them out, and if so, where could I find it, and would I need to eat a basket of kittens to prove my evilness credentials?

"I am Garlic Junior!" He looked sorta like a Namekian, but a bit off. If they were like plant people, maybe this one was spoiled from sitting somewhere damp too long? Or hadn't been put in the proper pickle juice.

"That's a really unfortunate name," I yawned.

"Don't mock me! I will be the new ruler of this world, and you will tremble before my might! Dragon, grant my wish, or suffer the consequences of my wrath!"

Goku and Piccolo both rushed in and took off some of their clothes, which seemed like an odd way to start a fight. I just hoped they weren't going to strip totally nude. I mean, that was one way to disable your opponent's eyes, but...

"...wait, did both of you run here to a fight wearing weights?"

"Dragon, I don't have a house," Piccolo pointed out. "Goku on the other hand has no excuse."

Goku gave a sheepish look. "I... wanted it to be challenging?"

"You forgot, didn't you." I deadpanned, my statement not even really a question.

"Hey, pay attention to me, not him!" Garlic Jr. whined. "I have kidnapped this boy so that I can force the dragon to grant me a wish! Fail to do my bidding and he shall come to harm!"

"Wait, you attacked me when you wanted a wish?" Piccolo interrupted. "You... know if I die, the dragon dies too, right?"

"...seriously?" Garlic turned to his minions. "How incompetent are all of you? You were supposed to figure this out when I sent you scouting!"

"Sorry sir!" said the group that looked vaguely like reject-aliens. Seriously, what were they? Knowing this universe, they probably were universe, but then, why were so many aliens on Earth? Was this some sort of hot-spot for them? Or did all planets tend to have multiple sentient species on them in this universe if they were habitable at all? Considering the faster than light travel that might actually make some logistical sense.

"Now, dragon, grant me my wish for immortality!"

And at those words, I smirked. Oh, loopholes, how I love thee.

"Sure," I said. Goku gasped.

"Mushu, you can't!"

"You want your son to be injured?" I snapped back. Seriously, show some more concern, you're his dad for fork sake.

"Well, no," Goku said, like that only just occurred to him. That head injury as a child really didn't do him any favors, did it? "But you can't make him immortal! He's a bad guy!"

"It's okay, immortality doesn't-" I stopped, realizing I didn't want to tell the villain this.

"Doesn't want?" said Garlic Junior, who unfortunately was not deaf.

"Doesn't make you invincible. It just makes it harder for you to die," I said dryly. Specifically, by not letting you die of old age. Did no one look things up in a dictionary?

"Hm. It doesn't?" Garlic mused. "Then... I wish for power AND immortality!"

"Isn't that two wishes?" I said, confused.

"Uh... Powerful immortality!"

I shrugged. "Alright, close enough." Was I really going to waste a wish on this?

Well, it was for Gohan, I supposed. Evil bastard with a stupid name _did _have the kid in his clutches after all. And this could be fun.

I gave him a very wicked grin that made him take an uneasy step back. "I think I'll turn you into a rechargeable Shikk spaceship battery. Powerful, and won't die of old age."

"W-wait, that's not what I meant!"

"Aww, Mushu, I wanted to fight him! You can't turn him into an inanimate object!" Goku complained. "You did say he wouldn't be, like, invincible, right? That means I could beat him!"

I paused. "Okay, but you'd owe me a favor. Would you be willing to punch a god later?"

Piccolo paled to celery-green at both of those statements. "Am I the only one here with any common sense?! And what is this about _Gods_?" I said God, not Gods, clearly he had hearing problems. "I hope you just meant Kami." Hahaha hilarious but _no_.

"Sure, Mushu!" Goku said like he hadn't heard Piccolo at all. "But I'd probably have to train real hard first."

Oh, Goku, you are a precious monkey-brained thing. It's a wonder you are still alive or ever managed to reproduce. Although I feel that might be more to Chi-Chi's credit than anyone else's.

Garlic Junior was looking very uneasy and started backing away toward the exit. "I feel like I should probably be worried my own enemy is begging for me to get more powerful." Wow, look at that, a villain with half a brain. Not what I was expecting when he tried to have Piccolo murdered and showed an otherwise complete lack of sense in kidnapping the protagonist's child, but hey.

"Yeah, you should be," Piccolo regained some of his confidence, although I could tell he was still kind of shaken. "The two of us are Earth's best fighters, and Mushu's energy level is the same as mine. In other words, he can't grant you the power to kill us outright because he doesn't have that power himself!"

Well, I was a lot more... creative, than Shenron, so that might not be 100% true, but close enough. I nodded.

Garlic trembled, then straightened. "Well, I'll still have my immortality! Grant it to me now, Eternal Dragon! Your confidence will be the undoing of you all - if you defeat me once, I'll just come back even stronger!"

My eyes flashed. "Your wish has been granted."

Selfish wish to selfless wish ratio, doing better! I guess that was worth another obnoxious stone-session...

Although, as I watched Goku and Piccolo wail into Garlic, I kind of regretted not staying around to watch longer, but it was probably best to not delay turning into stone this time as we grew closer to the true start of the series - I definitely wanted to be fully awake and rested for that. At the very least, it would be funny when Garlic realized I only granted him immunity to old age, although, Goku would probably torment me with puppy dog eyes relentlessly that I'd robbed him of a longer fight later.

If only I could have convinced Piccolo to wish for immortality himself. I'd hoped maybe spite-wishing would have inspired him to take it for himself, but no. He'd just looked really pissed off at me as I flew away.

I hope he didn't triple decker hate me with a cherry on top now for disappearing AND granting a wish to an enemy almost immediately after appearing again. But, I was trying to be neutral, so what was a balancing-wishes-dragon to do?

* * *

Vegeta stared at a blurry video of Batman, eyes narrowed as he took in all the details of the orange menace. Humanoids were common, but there was something very familiar about the skin and spiky black hair that managed to peek out from the costume.

In any case, it might be time to gather strength to face Frieza. A small part of him regretted Sion's death, but not by much - that weakling would never have been very useful.

The only question was, what to do about his damn babysitter? He could perhaps get a message off to the other saiyans who weren't as closely watched, but if the dragon showed up, could he trust them not to make a wish? Heck, if, as a small part of him suspected, Kakarott was involved with the dragon, how did he know that the dragon hadn't granted the fool immortality already? It was what any smart saiyan would have demanded as a favor, after all, although it was a little strange than the dragon wouldn't have granted it yet if it was planning to, or that the saiyan would honor its requests after if it really had granted the wish.

It was a terrible dilemma. Even if he tried to get off a message, it might be intercepted. One thing was for certain, though.

He would be very foolish to send Raditz to his own brother alone.

* * *

a/n: so, I thought of a way to kill Omni-King, if we get that far. I really, really don't like that character. Does anyone feel the same? I mean the dude just casually wipes out universes.

Also this has to be the most simultaneously lazy and ambitious character I've ever written, like, wow. Just go ahead and try to become a god when you don't even like fighting? That's pretty nuts. On the other hand, it's Dragonball, land of literal wishes. So not entirely implausible.

So, would anyone care/like it if getting rid of Omni-King was possible end-game or would that be too ridiculously OP? I mean, I wasn't fond of the ridiculous OPness of Super, and originally just had Beerus here to represent 'there is a bigger fish out there' and to flesh out Freiza a bit, but, the other big thing I didn't like about Super was, well, _Omni-King_.

Andddd canon has officially started to change! There you go.


End file.
